06/13/2012 

Older production facilities face equipment obsolescence; skills obsolescence; scarce availability of parts, software, and support; and equipment capability extension and tool re-use. At the ConFab 2012 Executive Roundtable, representatives from Sematech/ISMI, IDMs, OEMs, equipment dealers, and industry consultants gathered to have an open discussion on concerns, roadblocks, and possible solutions.

06/13/2012 

Semiconductor manufacturing equipment billings and bookings were virtually tied in Q1 2012, reports SEMI, with $10.61 billion in billings and $10.07 in bookings. This is a 13-14% improvement sequentially, and 9% below the same quarter last year.

06/12/2012 

Linde Gases, a division of The Linde Group, will deliver on-site fluorine (F₂) for SK Hynix Inc., under a new long-term supply contract for multiple volume semiconductor production sites in Korea.

06/11/2012 

In the second installment in a series called Process Watch, the author provides tips on how to make sure you’re reviewing the yield killing defects and not wasting time reviewing nuisance events. Authored by experts at KLA-Tencor, Process Watch articles focus on novel process control solutions for chip manufacturing at the leading edge.

06/11/2012 

STMicroelectronics announced that GLOBALFOUNDRIES has agreed to manufacture devices for ST using ST’s proprietary Fully Depleted Silicon-on-Insulator (FD-SOI) technology in both the 28nm and 20nm nodes.

06/06/2012 

Speaking at The ConFab 2012, Sanjay Rajguru, director of ISMI, pointed out that more than half the current fab capacity today comes from facilities that are more than ten years old, which is creating a problem with equipment obsolescence.

06/06/2012 

Tom Jefferson, G450 Consortium, shares an update on 450mm wafers for semiconductor manufacturing. The consortium is adding staff and ramping its silicon supply, and getting ready for equipment selection.

06/06/2012 

Applied Materials introduced the Applied Varian VIISta Trident single-wafer, high-current ion implant system, which embeds dopant atoms on 20nm semiconductor wafers at high yields.

06/06/2012 

With many advanced packaging processes taking place on the semiconductor wafer, the traditional supply chain of front-end fab at the foundry and back-end fab at the packaging and test house is falling apart. The ConFab session,

06/06/2012 

Bill Ross, ISMI, is moderating a session today at The ConFab 2012 on managing legacy semiconductor fabs and dealing with tool and materials obsolescence at 200mm and smaller. He speaks with Pete Singer about coping with these changes.

06/06/2012 

Fab equipment spending has improved in 2012, breaking the barrier into positive growth for the year, shows SEMI. Semiconductor makers will invest $39.5 billion in fabs, up 2% from 2011 spending. Fab capex will hit a record in 2013, $46.3 billion or 17% above 2012.

06/06/2012 

Mike Fury reports on Day 2 of the 15^th IITC (International Interconnect Technology Conference), from San Jose, CA.

06/05/2012 

At The ConFab 2012, fabless companies and foundries have a common goal: reduce power, increase performance and reduce price (not necessarily in that order).

06/05/2012 

Semiconductor manufacturing facilities dramatically decreased their normalized fab energy consumption from 1997 to 2011, shows ISMI's Worldwide Fab Energy Study.

06/05/2012 

Chip scaling will go on for the foreseeable future, enabling new product with more compute power, more memory, faster on-chip communication. That was one of the conclusions put forth by imec’s An Steegen, speaking on technology trends at The ConFab 2012.

06/05/2012 

The 15^th IITC (International Interconnect Technology Conference) opened Monday, June 4 at the Doubletree Hotel in San Jose, CA. Recurring themes this year were variations on 3D and TSV, novel systems and packaging, and back end memory. Mike Fury reports.

06/05/2012 

John Chen of Nvidia gave the opening keynote address of The ConFab 2012, presenting the concept of a “virtual IDM” comprising fabless companies, semiconductor foundries, and packaging houses working seamlessly together. After his speech, Chen caught up with Pete Singer.

06/04/2012 

Dan Hutcheson, VLSI Research Inc. spoke with Solid State Technology editor-in-chief Pete Singer at The ConFab 2012. Hutcheson presented on the cyclical nature of the semiconductor industry.

06/04/2012 

At The ConFab’s opening session, “The Economic Outlook for the Semiconductor Industry,” capex was a major point of interest. Jackie Sturm of Intel, Dan Hutcheson of VLSIresearch, and Jim Feldhan of Semico all touched on it, with Hutcheson expanding on the idea of capex trends to present an entire ecosystem of semiconductor business management.

06/04/2012 

The ConFab 2012, Solid State Technology’s invitation-only meeting of the semiconductor industry, opened today in Las Vegas with a keynote address from John Chen, PhD, VP of technology and foundry operations at Nvidia Corporation.