Issue

The biggest challenge the chipmaking industry faces when transitioning from go-it-alone strategies to collaborative models may come not from any external sources, but rather from internal misconceptions about the the extent to which best practices from other businesses apply to semiconductor manufacturing.

Although copper interconnects have become essential to the continuation of Moore’s Law, they too have limits.

System-in-package (SiP) and system-on-chip (SoC) approaches provide different advantages for different end-market applications.

Vacuum technology is not often considered as leading semiconductor manufacturing.

After nearly half a decade, design for manufacturing (DFM) has not provided the expected value to erstwhile users, in spite of the perceived need and vaunted advantages.

This paper describes a design-for-manufacturing (DFM) methodology and system for optimizing layouts to eliminate hot spots.

EXECUTIVE OVERVIEWHigh productivity combinatorial methods have been integrated with characterization systems and an informatics infrastructure to rapidly accelerate the pace of materials-based R&D.

An X-ray photoelectron spectrometer (XPS) is used at 65nm and 45nm nodes to monitor nitrogen dose and the SiON thickness of ultra thin nitrided gate oxides as well as the thickness of amorphous silicon on top of an amorphous carbon stack.

Increased lithography cluster tool productivity is required to reduce the cost of ownership (COO) of today’s advanced 193nm processes.

Specialized chemical mixtures used in semiconductor processing are necessary for the surface preparation of wafers.