EUV Pellicles

EUV Pellicles
by Paul McLellan on 07-31-2014 at 8:01 am

Shakespeare reckoned that a man went through seven stages in his life.All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages.

Well, an EUV mask seems to only go through three main stages:

[LIST=1]

  • the blank
  • Read More

    EUV and DSA from Imec and #semiconwest

    EUV and DSA from Imec and #semiconwest
    by Paul McLellan on 07-14-2014 at 7:00 am

    All the details of how we will build semiconductors going forward depend on whether we have EUV in our arsenal or not. Imec is very close to this since they work closely with ASML (who are about an hour and half’s drive away just outside Eindhoven in the Netherlands). At the imec technology symposium we were given a quick summary… Read More


    Imec’s Process Secret Decoder Ring

    Imec’s Process Secret Decoder Ring
    by Paul McLellan on 07-12-2014 at 11:00 am

    To wrap up Semicon West, let’s go back to Monday and the imec presentations. In fact, An Steegen’s presentation titled The Semiconductor Roadmap. She covered a lot of ground, but some of her slides contain a wealth of information. Let’s look at the options for 10nm, 7nm and a little 5nm, what imec call N10, N7 and… Read More


    Bob Metcalfe Keynote at #semiconwest

    Bob Metcalfe Keynote at #semiconwest
    by Paul McLellan on 07-10-2014 at 9:00 am

    My PhD is in distributed file systems so one of the key networking papers was Metcalfe and Boggs, 1976. It was titled Ethernet: Distributed Packet Switching for Local Computer Networks. This was the paper that introduced the world to Ethernet and to Bob Metcalfe. He was on stage yesterday here at Semicon West to give the afternoon… Read More


    IMEC Technology Symposium

    IMEC Technology Symposium
    by Paul McLellan on 07-08-2014 at 12:52 pm

    Yesterday I attended the IMEC Technology Forum at Semicon West. As always with IMEC, they present so much information it is like drinking from a firehose. I’ll say more about the future of process technology in a blog later this week, but this blog is about IMEC itself. It is an amazing success story. Let’s face it, if you were going … Read More


    Internet of Things (IoT) Startup Showcase @ SEMICON West!

    Internet of Things (IoT) Startup Showcase @ SEMICON West!
    by Daniel Nenni on 06-24-2014 at 3:00 pm

    Innopartners accelerator%20logo

    It’s hard to believe that SEMICON West is upon us once again at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. This is the premier semiconductor conference for cutting-edge equipment, processes, and materials, to solutions to today’s design and manufacturing challenges. Remember, it’s not what you know (because … Read More


    SEMICON West 2014 Preview

    SEMICON West 2014 Preview
    by Paul McLellan on 05-27-2014 at 12:46 pm

    There is a really big conference coming up in San Francisco…no, not DAC although of course that is coming up too. I’m talking about SEMICON West which is much bigger, filling all 3 Moscone exhibit halls. It is July 8-10th. It is, of course, the semiconductor equipment industry (and solar) show.

    The opening keynote on… Read More


    More Moore or No More?

    More Moore or No More?
    by Daniel Nenni on 05-22-2014 at 11:30 pm

    Moore’s is still the law, and device scaling remains the key focus of front-end process research, however next-generation technologies–and the Big Data, cloud computing world that supports mobile, IoT, and other next-gen applications–are the new drivers, bringing new demands and challenges running Read More


    Should the Design Automation Conference Colocate with SEMICON West?

    Should the Design Automation Conference Colocate with SEMICON West?
    by Daniel Nenni on 07-03-2013 at 8:10 pm

    My friend and fellow blogger Kurt Shuler wrote recently, “DAC Is Dead? Long Live DAC!”, which is worth a click over. In addition to providing a nice attendance graph and the top three reasons why it is NOT all rosy, Kurt suggests colocating DAC with other conferences (DESIGN West) but fails to mention SEMICON West.

    SEMICON West is Read More


    SEMICON West: My Top Picks

    SEMICON West: My Top Picks
    by Paul McLellan on 06-20-2013 at 11:21 am

    I will be at Semicon West from 9th to 11th July in Moscone, San Francisco. Of course there are lots of interesting sessions but here are two that I think are especially important to get a good impression of the way things are going in the future from experts. The two most interesting questions about the future are what comes after 14nm,… Read More