Issue

While laudable for establishing consensus on the current state-of-the-art in semiconductor manufacturing, the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) has not been shown to be overly accurate as a predictor of the future.

Over 1600 technologists gathered in Washington, DC, last month to explore a wide range of innovative ideas at the 2007 International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM).

Among the most promising of thin-film solar cells are those made of copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS), but controlling film composition is a big hurdle to commercialization.

This month, presents a special preview of the January edition of Chip Forensics, an online column by Dick James, senior technology adviser at Chipworks, a specialty reverse engineering company that takes apart ICs and electronics systems in order to provide engineering information for its customers.

The semiconductor industry value chain, including materials, equipment, manufacturing, and consumer products, has a long history of creativity and innovation in the “greening” of its operations.

Richard Feynman predicted the emergence of the nanotechnology field during a now-famous Caltech lecture in 1959 [1].

Single-wafer high current implanter designs with diffusion-less annealing flash or laser equipment result in both global and local micro-uniformity variations.

A new generation of atomic force microscopes (AFM) has been designed for critical dimension (CD) metrology applications.

As the lithography process moves toward the 45nm and 32nm nodes, phase control on the mask is becoming more important than ever.

A variety of approaches to nano- and micro-engineering have begun to yield portable fuel cells-with dramatic cost and size advantages-for niche markets.

Stacked-die-attach package applications require backside metal deposition for device contact within the package.