Coronavirus Chops SPIE Litho EUV Conference

Coronavirus Chops SPIE Litho EUV Conference
by Robert Maire on 03-01-2020 at 6:00 am

SPIE EUV 2020 Coronavirus

Corona Curtails already quiet SPIE Litho conference
Our best guess is that attendance was off by 30% from last years SPIE conference due to a lack of travelers from many Asian areas obviously out of Corona fear. Even Intel, which is a few miles away was a virtual no-show with a mass cancellation.

More importantly, virtually all after… Read More


IEDM 2019 – Imec Interviews

IEDM 2019 – Imec Interviews
by Scotten Jones on 01-21-2020 at 6:00 am

Slide4

Imec is one of the premier semiconductor research organizations and at IEDM they presented dozens of papers. I had the opportunity to see several of the papers presented and interview 3 of Imec’s researchers.

Jan Van Houdt, DMTS ferroelectric and exploratory memory

I have had very interesting discussions with Imec researchers… Read More


Semicon West 2019 – Day 2

Semicon West 2019 – Day 2
by Scotten Jones on 07-18-2019 at 10:00 am

Tuesday July 9th was the first day the show floor was open at Semicon. The following is a summary of some announcements I attended and general observations.

AMAT Announcement

My day started with an Applied Materials (AMAT) briefing for press and analysts where they announced “the most sophisticated system they have ever released”.… Read More


SEMICON West 2019 – Day 1 – Imec

SEMICON West 2019 – Day 1 – Imec
by Scotten Jones on 07-15-2019 at 10:00 am

On Monday, July 8th Imec held a technology forum ahead of Semicon West. I saw the papers presented and interviewed three of the authors. The following is a summary of what I feel are the keys points of their research.

Arnaud Furnemont
Arnaud Furnemont’s talk was titled “From Technology Scaling to System Optimization”. Simple 2D … Read More


SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference – Imec and Veeco on EUV

SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference – Imec and Veeco on EUV
by Scotten Jones on 04-19-2019 at 12:00 pm

At the SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference Imec presented several papers on EUV and Veeco presented about etching for EUV masks. I had the opportunity to see the presentations and speak with some of the authors. In this article I will summarize the key issues around EUV based on this research.

EUV is ramping up into high volume 7nm… Read More


SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference 2019 Overall Impressions

SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference 2019 Overall Impressions
by Scotten Jones on 03-05-2019 at 6:00 am

Last week I attended the 2019 SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference. I gave two presentations, attended dozens of papers and conducted three interviews. I will be doing some detailed write ups particularly on EUV but I am waiting for the presentations from several of the papers. In the mean time I thought I would put some overall … Read More


Report from SPIE EUV Update 2019

Report from SPIE EUV Update 2019
by Robert Maire on 03-01-2019 at 7:00 am

Not as much new – No breakthrough announcements, 300 watts is better than 250 watts – Pellicle Problems, TSMC is EUV king – Third times a charm? We attended this years SPIE Lithography convention in San Jose as we have for many years. Although the show was quite enthusiastic and EUV was the central topic, as it has… Read More


IEDM 2018 Imec on Interconnect Metals Beyond Copper

IEDM 2018 Imec on Interconnect Metals Beyond Copper
by Scotten Jones on 12-28-2018 at 7:00 am

At IEDM this December Imec presented “Interconnect metals beyond copper – reliability challenges and opportunities”. In addition to seeing the paper presented I had a chance to interview one of the authors, Kristof Croes. Replacements for copper are a hot subject and I will summarize the challenges and Imec’s work.… Read More


SEMICON West – Leading Edge Lithography and EUV

SEMICON West – Leading Edge Lithography and EUV
by Scotten Jones on 08-13-2018 at 7:00 am

At SEMICON West I attended the imec technology forum, multiple Tech Spot presentations and conducted a number of interviews relevant to advanced lithography and EUV. In this article I will summarize what I learned plus make some comments on the outlook for EUV.… Read More


VLSIT Conference – imec on CFETs

VLSIT Conference – imec on CFETs
by Scotten Jones on 07-16-2018 at 12:00 pm

The 2018 VLSI Technology conference was held in Hawaii in June and is one of the premier conferences covering integrated circuit process technology and circuit design. The Complementary FET (CFET) is an emerging option to continue logic scaling into the next decade. At the conference imec, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Tokyo Electron and… Read More