In an earlier article [1], the resolution limit for the space between paired features was described by the Rayleigh criterion of ~0.6 wavelength/numerical aperture, where the numerical aperture (NA) represented the sine of the largest angle for a ray focused from the lens to a point. It is also given by the radius of the lens divided… Read More
Toshiba Cost Model for 3D NAND
Toshiba (now known as Kioxia) was the first company to propose a 3D stacked version of NAND Flash memory called BICS [1]. BICS (BIt Cost Scalable) Flash used explicit process cost reduction based on depositing and etching multiple layers at once, avoiding multiple lithography steps. This strategy replaced the usual approach… Read More
Smartphone Processor Trends and Process Differences down through 7nm
This comparison of smartphone processors from different companies and fab processes was originally going to be a post, but with the growing information content, I had to put it into an article. Here, due to information availability, Apple, Huawei, and Samsung Exynos processors will get the most coverage, but a few Qualcomm Snapdragon
Fully Self-Aligned 6-Track and 7-Track Cell Process Integration
For the 10nm – 5nm nodes, the leading-edge foundries are designing cells which utilize 6 or 7 metal tracks, entailing a wide metal line for every 4 or 5 minimum width lines, respectively (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Left: a 7-track cell. Right: a 6-track cell.
This is a fundamental vulnerability for lithography, as defocus can change… Read More
SEMICON West – Applied Materials Selective Gap Fill Announcement
At SEMICON West, Applied Materials announced a new selective gap fill tool to address the growing resistance issues in interconnect at small dimensions. I had the opportunity to discuss this new tool and the applications for it with Zhebo Chen global product manager in the Metal Deposition Products group at Applied Materials.… Read More
AMAT- Solid QTR & Great Guide- Share gains- Memory?
Higher Foundry/logic exposure helps-
Little or no Covid or China trade impact-
Nice quarter but even better guide-
Applied reported revenues of $4.4B and NonGAAP EPS of $1.06, nicely above street estimates of $4.2B and $0.95 in EPS. Guidance is for revenues $4.6B +-$200M and EPS of $1.17+- $0.06, versus current expectations of… Read More
Application-Specific Lithography: 20nm Flash, 3D XPoint, 3D NAND Bit Lines
Nonvolatile memory capacity reached 64 Gb levels when NAND Flash half-pitch reached 20 nm [1]. Having reached 14 nm [2], NAND Flash half-pitch is no longer being reduced, now that it has entered the 3D era. However, recently, 3D XPoint has found applications within the Optane platform [3]. The lithography for patterning 20 nm half-pitch… Read More
EUV faces Scylla and Charybdis
It is now time for the EUV community to realize they are caught between the proverbial Scylla and Charybdis. In Greek mythology, the two monsters terrorized ships that were unlucky enough to pass between them. By avoiding one, you approached the other.
S for Scylla, or Stochastics
Scylla was a former beautiful nymph turned into
Imec Technology Forum and ASML
On Thursday July 9 Imec held a virtual technology forum. Imec is one of the premier research organizations working on semiconductor technology and their forums are always interesting. My area of interest is process technology and the following are my observation in that area from the forum.
Luc Van Den Hove
Luc Van Den Hove is the… Read More
VLSI Symposium 2020 – Imec Buried Power Rail
The 2020 VLSI Technology Symposium was held as a virtual conference from June 14th through June 19th. At the symposium Imec gave an interesting paper on Buried Power Rails (BPR) and I had a chance to interview one of the authors, Anshul Gupta.
As logic devices continue to scale down metal pitch is reaching a limit. Imec defines a pitch… Read More
No! TSMC does not Make 90% of Advanced Silicon