Spacer-defined patterning is an expected requirement for advanced semiconductor patterning nodes with feature sizes of 25 nm or less. As the required gaps between features go well below the lithography tool’s resolution limit, the use of cut exposures to separate features is used more often, especially in chips produced… Read More





DFT Innovations Come from Customer Partnerships
There is an adage that says that quality is not something that can be slapped on at the end of the design or manufacturing process. Ensuring quality requires careful thought throughout development and production. Arguably this adage is more applicable to the topic of Design for Test (DFT) than almost any other area of IC development… Read More
Accellera Tackles Functional Safety, Mixed-Signal
I managed a few meetings at DVCon this year in spite of the Coronavirus problems. One of these was with Lu Dai Chairman of Accellera. I generally meet with Lu each year to get an update on where they are headed, and he had some interesting new topics to share.
Membership and headcount remain pretty stable. Any changes (at the associate… Read More
Webinar: Build Your Next HBM2/2E Chip with SiFive
I have been watching the trend for quite some time now that many advanced FinFET designs today are actually 2.5D systems in package. All of these 2.5D silicon interposer-based designs have high-bandwidth memory (HBM) stacks on board. Often there are multiple memory stacks in both 4-high and 8-high configurations. If you follow… Read More
Talking Sense With Moortec…Are You Listening?!
It almost doesn’t matter what your job may be, whether in the public sector or a private company, or how technical or how dangerous, many of life’s adages and sayings can be interpreted to have some direct meaning for all of us.
Over the years in our personal lives, we have been constantly advised that prevention is better than cure…certainly… Read More
Linux for Medical Devices Q&A
As I have mentioned before SemiWiki gets to meet some very smart people and here is another one. Scot Morrison has an MS degree in Aerospace Engineering from MIT specializing in control systems. Today he is the general manager of the Embedded Platform Solutions Division at Mentor, a Siemens business. Scot oversees the Linux®, Nucleus®,… Read More
Is Chip Embargo aimed at China, Huawei, TSMC or all three?
Is TSMC the real target, not just collateral damage?
Is equipment embargo threat to bring TSMC to heel?
Is an embargo a “Trifecta” of US strategic goals?
Maybe TSMC is a real target of chip equipment embargo not just potential collateral damage
It occurs to us when we talk about TSMC being caught in the middle between … Read More
Covid Created Collateral China Crisis
Economic damage-
China relationship damage will far outlast direct Covid19 logistics impact-
Economic damage could be huge but trade damage could be larger with more specific impact on chips-
A long build up to a China trade nuclear winter, the “drum-beat of war”
When we started talking about a potential chip trade… Read More
TSMC’s Advanced IC Packaging Solutions
TSMC as Pure Play Wafer Foundry
TSMC started its wafer foundry business more than 30 years ago. Visionary management and creative engineering teams developed leading-edge process technologies and their reputation as trusted source for high-volume production. TSMC also recognized very early the importance of building an … Read More
Lithography Resolution Limits: Line End Gaps
In a previous article [1], the Rayleigh criterion was mentioned as the resolution limit for the distance between two features. On the other hand, in a following article [2], the minimum pitch was mentioned for the resolution limit for arrayed features. In this article, we reconcile the two by considering gaps between arrayed features,… Read More
Should the US Government Invest in Intel?