Issue

Rising productivity can create prosperity for corporations and individuals. The impact of new technology in boosting productivity was a major contributor to the lengthy economic upturn of the 1990s, according to Alan Greenspan when he was Fed Chairman.

Discussions of Moore’s Law usually focus on the fastest microprocessors and the highest memory densities.

Some of the device defects that are coming to the fore at advanced technology nodes are due to shrinking linewidths that cause greater interaction between device lines.

An LCD is composed of a number of parts including backlights, polarizers, glass, liquid crystals, and color filters, each of which requires numerous unit processes to manufacture.

Organo-silicate glass (OSG) based low-k dielectric materials are widely used to minimize resistance-times-capacitance (RC) delays in the BEOL interconnect for <90nm node logic devices.

As the semiconductor world moves toward 45nm geometries-with 32nm and 22nm processes on the horizon-relying on designers to follow recommended design rules in addition to the standard minimum rules is increasingly less effective for improving yield.

The measurement of trace water vapor in corrosive gases such as hydrogen bromide (HBr) used in semiconductor manufacturing is essential to maintain process consistency and maximize device yields.

Despite the success of some dry-etching processes, wet etching remains a staple in semiconductor device fabrication, as well as in many other related technologies, such as MEMS and photovoltaics manufacturing.

Traditionally, an implant process is defined by the implant species’ atomic mass, energy, dose, and angular wafer positioning with respect to the projected beam direction (beamline axis).

In semiconductor and optoelectronics manufacturing, many hazardous gases are used, such as pyrophoric silane (SiH4) for thin-film deposition, corrosive chlorine (Cl2) for dry-etching, and toxic arsine (AsH3) for ion implantation.

Since its earliest days in the 1950s, the semiconductor industry has been dependent on silicon technology to meet the price, performance, power, and package demands that have enabled rapid advances in the electronics arena.

As the critical dimensions of semiconductor devices continue to get smaller, film thickness control in the photolithography process becomes increasingly important.