Applied Materials Announces “EPIC” Development Center

Applied Materials Announces “EPIC” Development Center
by Scotten Jones on 06-07-2023 at 8:00 am

Applied Materials EPIC briefing under embargo Page 10

On May 22nd Applied Materials announced a new development center, Equipment and Process Innovation and Commercialization Center (EPIC).

Applied Materials already operates the Maydan Technology Center (MTC), a billion-dollar development facility with over 120 advanced process tools and 80 metrology and inspection tools… Read More


SPIE 2023 – imec Preparing for High-NA EUV

SPIE 2023 – imec Preparing for High-NA EUV
by Scotten Jones on 05-17-2023 at 6:00 am

Figure 1 Pellicle Transmission

The SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference was held in February. I recently had the opportunity to interview Steven Scheer, vice president of advanced patterning process and materials at imec and review selected papers that imec presented.

I asked Steve what the overarching message was at SPIE this year, he said readiness for … Read More


TSMC has spent a lot more money on 300mm than you think

TSMC has spent a lot more money on 300mm than you think
by Scotten Jones on 04-06-2023 at 10:00 am

Slide1

Up until November of 2022, IC Knowledge LLC was an independent company and had become the world leader in cost and price modeling of semiconductors. In November 2022 TechInsights acquired IC Knowledge LLC and IC Knowledge LLC is now a TechInsights company.

For many years, IC Knowledge has published a database tracking all the 300mm… Read More


SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference 2023 – AMAT Sculpta® Announcement

SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference 2023 – AMAT Sculpta® Announcement
by Scotten Jones on 03-13-2023 at 8:00 am

Applied Materials Sculpta Presentation for Media Page 06

The SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference is the semiconductor industries premier conference on lithography. The 2023 conference was held the week of February 27th and at the conference Applied Materials announced their Sculpta® pattern shaping tool. Last week I had an opportunity to interview Steven Sherman the Managing … Read More


IEDM 2023 – 2D Materials – Intel and TSMC

IEDM 2023 – 2D Materials – Intel and TSMC
by Scotten Jones on 02-20-2023 at 6:00 am

Slide1

Intel and TSMC make up two of the three leading edge logic companies. At IEDM held in December 2022, Intel presented a paper on 2D Materials and TSMC presented 6 papers. Clearly 2D materials are of great interest at least to two of the three leading edge logic companies. Before diving into the papers, some background context is needed.… Read More


IEDM 2022 – Imec 4 Track Cell

IEDM 2022 – Imec 4 Track Cell
by Scotten Jones on 01-18-2023 at 6:00 am

2022 IEDM Presentation Session23 2 VictorVega Page 03

At the IEDM conference in December 2022, Imec presented “Semi-damascene Integration of a 2-layer MOL VHV Scaling Booster to Enable 4-track Standard Cells,” I had a chance to not only read the paper and see it presented, but also to interview one of the authors Zsolt Tokie.

Logic designs are built up by standard cells such as inverters,… Read More


IEDM 2022 – TSMC 3nm

IEDM 2022 – TSMC 3nm
by Scotten Jones on 01-02-2023 at 6:00 am

TSMC CPP

TSMC presented two papers on 3nm at the 2022 IEDM; “Critical Process features Enabling Aggressive Contacted Gate Pitch Scaling for 3nm CMOS Technology and Beyond” and “A 3nm CMOS FinFlexTM Platform Technology with Enhanced Power Efficiency and Performance for Mobile SOC and High Performance Computing Applications”.

When … Read More


IEDM 2022 – Ann Kelleher of Intel – Plenary Talk

IEDM 2022 – Ann Kelleher of Intel – Plenary Talk
by Scotten Jones on 12-06-2022 at 10:00 am

Ann 2022 IEDM Plenary Dec. 5 Roadmap Slide

Ann Kelleher is Intel’s Executive Vice President, General Manager, Technology Development, and she gave the first plenary talk to kick off the 2022 IEDM, “Celebrating 75 Years of the Transistor A Look at the Evolution of Moore’s Law Innovation”. I am generally not a fan of plenary talks because I think they are often too broad and… Read More


Does SMIC have 7nm and if so, what does it mean

Does SMIC have 7nm and if so, what does it mean
by Scotten Jones on 09-07-2022 at 10:00 am

SMIC 7nm

Recently TechInsights analyzed a Bitcoin Miner chip fabbed at SMIC and declared SMIC has a 7nm process. There has been some debate as to whether the SMIC process is really 7nm and what it means if it is 7nm. I wanted to discuss the case for and against the process being 7nm, and what I think it means.

First off, I want to say I am not going … Read More


SEMICON West 2022 and the Imec Roadmap

SEMICON West 2022 and the Imec Roadmap
by Scotten Jones on 08-03-2022 at 10:00 am

ITFUSA2022 LucVandenhove Page 093

SEMICON West 2022 was held from July 12th to 14th at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

On Monday the 11th before the show, Imec held a technology forum at the Marriott Marquee right around the corner from the Moscone center. In recent years the Imec forums have shifted away from the process technology I cover to more of a system and… Read More