Part 4 of this series discussed how a transistor Extension could be fabricated in a planar device without using an implant operation, and is instead formed using a preferential etch followed by a selective epitaxial deposition. This final installment of the series will present the formation of an Extension in a FinFET transistor… Read More
Author: Daniel Nenni
The SiFive Tech Symposiums are Heading to Six Cities in Europe in May!
Hello Cambridge, Grenoble, Stockholm, Moscow, Munich and Amsterdam
Our 2019 global symposiums and workshops have been hugely successful in promoting the RISC-V ISA and fostering expansive collaboration within the open-source community. It’s invigorating to see how the worldwide semiconductor ecosystem is energized and… Read More
The Evolution of the Extension Implant Part IV
Perhaps the most innovative and effective Extension implant does not involve an implant at all, but is instead an etch followed by a selective epitaxial deposition.
In this Extension fabrication methodology the Source/Drains regions in a planar device are etched away in the normal fashion to accommodate the replacement Source/Drain… Read More
Three Reasons Why You Should NOT Miss 56thDAC
Reason number ONE:The next five DACs will be in San Francisco and this will probably be the last one held in Las Vegas so you absolutely do NOT want to miss it. One of my most memorable DACs was in Las Vegas in 1985. My wife came with me for our second honeymoon and, by definition, it was just that, a honeymoon. This year we will probably spend… Read More
eSilicon ASICs all in the Google Cloud
Having just completed a cloud evaluation for SemiWiki I can tell you why eSilicon chose Google. Simply put, they are working harder to get cloud business. Google ($4B) is the number five cloud provider behind Microsoft ($21.2B), Amazon ($20.4B), IBM ($10.3B) and Oracle ($6.08B). There is a lot of money in the cloud and a lot more … Read More
The Evolution of the Extension Implant Part III
The problem of traditional FinFET Extension Implant doping concerns the awkward 3-dimensional structure of the fin. Because the Extension Implant defines the conductive electrical pathway between the Source/Drains and the undoped channel portion of the fin, it is essential that the fin be uniformly doped all three of its surfaces… Read More
The Evolution of the Extension Implant Part II
The use of hard masks instead of photoresist for the Extension implant is an effective way to optimize the amount of dopant that is retained along the fin sidewalls for those fins that border along photoresist edges (as discussed in Part 1 of this series).
However, hard masks do nothing to address the dominant problem driving steeper… Read More
A Brief History of Methodics
Methodics has been a key player in IP management for over 10 years. In this section, Methodics shares their history, technology, and their role in developing IP Lifecycle Management (IPLM) solutions for the electronics industry.
Methodics is recognized as a premier provider of IP Lifecycle Management (IPLM) and traceability… Read More
The Evolution of the Extension Implant Part I
The 3D character of FinFET transistor structures pose a range of unique fabrication problems that can make it challenging to get these devices to yield. This is especially true for the all-important Extension implant that is put in place just prior to the nitride spacer formation.
The Extension implant is a central component of… Read More
EDA Update 2019
Over the last six years EDA has experienced yet another disruption not unlike the Synopsys acquisition of Avant! in 2001 which positioned Synopsys for the EDA lead they still enjoy today. Or the hiring of famed venture capitalist Lip-Bu Tan in 2009 to be the CEO of struggling EDA pioneer Cadence Design Systems. Under Lip-Bu’s… Read More








The Risk of Not Optimizing Clock Power