SPIE 2017: EUV Readiness for High Volume Manufacturing

SPIE 2017: EUV Readiness for High Volume Manufacturing
by Scotten Jones on 03-03-2017 at 12:00 pm

The SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference is the world’s leading conference addressing photolithography. This year on the opening day of the conference, Samsung and Intel presented papers summarizing the readiness of EUV for high volume manufacturing (HVM). In this article, I will begin by summarizing the EUV plans … Read More


Scott Jones ISS Talk – Moore’s Law Lives!

Scott Jones ISS Talk – Moore’s Law Lives!
by Scotten Jones on 02-07-2017 at 12:00 pm

I was invited to give a talk at this year’s ISS conference, the talk seemed to be very well received and I was asked to blog about it for SemiWiki. Parts of the talk will be familiar to SemiWiki readers from some of my previous blogs but I also went into more detail around some scaling challenges. The following is a summary of what… Read More


The 2017 Leading Edge Semiconductor Landscape

The 2017 Leading Edge Semiconductor Landscape
by Scotten Jones on 12-27-2016 at 6:00 pm

In early September of 2016 I published an article “The 2016 Leading Edge Semiconductor Landscape” that proved to be very popular with many views, comments and reposting’s. Since I wrote that article a lot of new data has become available enabling some projections to be replaced by actual values and new analysis… Read More


Advanced Semiconductor Process Cost Trends

Advanced Semiconductor Process Cost Trends
by Scotten Jones on 12-13-2016 at 4:00 pm

The cost trend for leading edge semiconductor technologies is a subject of some controversy in the industry. Cost is a complex issue with many interacting factors and much of the information out in the industry is in my opinion misleading or incorrect. In this article, I will discuss each of the factors as well as present a view of … Read More


The 2016 Leading Edge Semiconductor Landscape

The 2016 Leading Edge Semiconductor Landscape
by Scotten Jones on 09-03-2016 at 7:00 am

The leading edge semiconductor logic landscape has in recent years collapsed to just four companies. The following is a summary of what is currently known about each company’s plans and how they compare. ASML has analyzed many logic nodes and developed a formula that normalizes processes to a “standard node”.… Read More


SEMICON West – Harry Levinson and Mike Lercel Interview

SEMICON West – Harry Levinson and Mike Lercel Interview
by Scotten Jones on 08-02-2016 at 12:00 pm

On Tuesday morning at SEMICON I had the opportunity to sit down with Harry Levinson, Sr. Director of Technology Research and Sr. Fellow at Global Foundries and Michael Lercel, Director of Strategic Marketing at ASML to discuss the state of lithography.

I opened the discussion with a question about how we are going to address lithography… Read More


IMEC-Horizontal Nanowires for 5nm at the VLSI Technology Symposium

IMEC-Horizontal Nanowires for 5nm at the VLSI Technology Symposium
by Scotten Jones on 07-21-2016 at 12:00 pm

At the VLSI Technology Symposium, IMEC presented a paper entitled “Gate-All-Around MOSFETs based on Vertically Stacked Horizontal Si Nanowires in a Replacement Metal Gate Process on Bulk Silicon Wafers”. I have wanted to blog about this paper since the symposium was held but also wanted to tie it in with an interview… Read More


IMEC Technology Forum (ITF) – EUV When, Not If

IMEC Technology Forum (ITF) – EUV When, Not If
by Scotten Jones on 05-28-2016 at 7:00 am

For me personally EUV has been something of a roller coaster ride over the last several years. I started out a strong believer in EUV but then at the SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference in 2014 TSMC gave a very negative assessment of EUV, and there was a SEMATECH paper on high NA EUV that struck me as extremely unlikely to succeed. I … Read More


EUV is coming but will we need it?

EUV is coming but will we need it?
by Scotten Jones on 04-12-2016 at 4:00 pm

I have written multiple articles about this year’s SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference describing all of the progress EUV has made in the last year. Source power is improving, photoresists are getting faster, prototype pellicles are in testing, multiple sites around the world are exposing wafers by the thousands and more. Read More