Last week, Intel announced its second-quarter financial results which easily beat the analysts’ consensus expectations by a handsome margin. Yet the stock price plummeted by over 16% right after the earnings call with management. Seven analysts downgraded the stock to a sell and the common theme on all the downgrades was that… Read More
Tag: tsmc
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
Thermo-compression bonding for Large Stacked HBM Die
Summary
Thermo-compression bonding is used in heterogeneous 3D packaging technology – this attach method was applied to the assembly of large (12-stack and 16-stack) high bandwidth memory (HBM) die, with significant bandwidth and power improvements over traditional microbump attach.
Introduction
The rapid growth of heterogeneous… Read More
ASML More Covid Concerns and Impact
- Covid related Revenue Rec causes rev/EPS miss
- Sharp order drop reflects H2 industry uncertainty
- EUV remains solid- Memory/Logic mix is better
Results were in line after correcting Covid Caused Revenue Rec issue-
ASML reported revenues of Euro3.3B and EPS of Euro1.79 as revenues from two EUV systems was not recognized, due to … Read More
In-Memory Computing for Low-Power Neural Network Inference
“AI is the new electricity.”, according to Andrew Ng, Professor at Stanford University. The potential applications for machine learning classification are vast. Yet, current ML inference techniques are limited by the high power dissipation associated with traditional architectures. The figure below highlights the … Read More
A Compelling Application for AI in Semiconductor Manufacturing
There have been a multitude of announcements recently relative to the incorporation of machine learning (ML) methods into EDA tool algorithms, mostly in the physical implementation flows. For example, deterministic ML-based decision algorithms applied to cell placement and signal interconnect routing promise to expedite… Read More
Application-Specific Lithography: The 5nm 6-Track Cell
An update is now available here: Application-Specific Lithography: Patterning 5nm 5.5-Track Metal by DUV
The 5nm foundry (e.g., TSMC) node may see the introduction of 6-track cells (two double-width rails plus four minimum-width dense lines) with a minimum metal pitch in the neighborhood of 30 nm. IMEC had studied a representative… Read More
Optimizing Chiplet-to-Chiplet Communications
Summary
The growing significance of ultra-short reach (USR) interfaces on 2.5D packaging technology has led to a variety of electrical definitions and circuit implementations. TSMC recently presented the approach adopted by their IP development team, for a parallel-bus, clock-forwarded USR interface to optimize power/performance/area… Read More
Multi-Vt Device Offerings for Advanced Process Nodes
Summary
As a result of extensive focus on the development of workfunction metal (WFM) deposition, lithography, and removal, both FinFET and gate-all-around (GAA) devices will offer a wide range of Vt levels for advanced process nodes below 7nm.
Introduction
Cell library and IP designers rely on the availability of nFET and pFET… Read More
TSMC Pushes out Equip Purchases – SIA and SEMI ask for Government Help
TSMC pushing out equipment purchases
Covid/China trickles down to chip industry
SIA and SEMI ask for financial/govt help to keep up
The beginning of another down cycle?
We have heard from a number of sources that TSMC has started to push out equipment orders as concerns grow about the second half of the year.
Right now is the most logical… Read More
