Recently added articles from Semiconductor International:
Infrastructure Still Inhibits 3-D ICs.
May 01, 2009 ... Ruth Dejule, Contributing Editor The industry is challenged to identify the most cost-effective stacking, bonding and integration methods. Over the past two decades, the concept of 3-D integration has intrigued the semiconductor industry (Fig. 1). With associated ...
First Signs of Recovery.
May 01, 2009 ... Laura Peters, Editor-in-Chief I am extremely happy to acknowledge that the industry is seeing the beginning signs of a turnaround. Several people in the industry have stated that the industry has hit bottom. Most prominently, Paul Otellini, Intel's president and CEO, said April ...
Group Purchasing Helps the Bottom Line.
May 01, 2009 ... L.T. Guttadauro, President, Fab Owners, Association Purchasing Partners Inc., Cupertino, Calif., www.waferquote.com With semiconductor growth expected to hover around zero for 2009, consumer spending tucked in for a long winter, and stocks on enforced vacation, what are the ...
Optimized TSV Filling Processes Reduce Costs.
May 01, 2009 ... Arthur Keigler, Zhen Liu and Johannes Chiu, Nexx Systems, Billerica, Mass., www.nexxsystems.com Chemical and equipment vendors are working to reduce the cost of through-silicon via filling to ensure that it is not a cost-prohibitive roadblock to 3-D integration. Multi-step ...
Flip-Chip Packaging Becomes Competitive.
May 01, 2009 ... Sally Cole Johnson, Contributing Editor The cost and performance benefits of flip-chip packaging, combined with the increased cost of gold bonding wire, have made flip-chip technology competitive for applications ranging from cell phones to gaming chips. Looking back ...
Coping With New Metrology Requirements During Difficult Times.
May 01, 2009 ... Staff This month's podcast interview features Linda Rae, executive vice president and COO at Keithley Instruments Inc. She speaks about the challenges faced by metrology as ...
EUV Light Source.
May 01, 2009 ... Staff The EQ-10HR is a light source that operates at 10 kHz to simulate the requirements of high-volume manufacturing for EUV lithography implementation. The Electrodeless Z-Pinch inductively couples the current into the discharge plasma, making the plasma more stable and ...
SEM/TEM.
May 01, 2009 ... Staff The JEM-ARM200F atomic resolution analytical microscope offers aberration-corrected S/TEM technology. It achieves a high-angle annular darkfield (HAADF-STEM) resolution of 80 pm (0.08 nm). The system enables both atom-by-atom imaging resolution and spatial resolution for ...
PV Yield Management Software.
May 01, 2009 ... Staff Discover Solar fab management software incorporates a re-engineered database structure and analysis engine optimized for the requirements of high-volume photovoltaic ...
Solar Inspection.
May 01, 2009 ... Staff The PVI-6 provides optical in-line dual-sided inspection of photovoltaic (PV) cells from bare wafer to silicon nitride coating, metallization and final classification. The software includes analytical tools to increase ...
Perfluoroelastomer Seals.
May 01, 2009 ... Staff Chemraz XTR is a perfluoroelastomer that provides chemical resistance in highly corrosive fluorine environments, specifically ClF3 and NF3 at high temperatures. The perfluoroelastomer compound addresses the application challenges typically found in ALD of titanium nitride ...
Support for FDC.
May 01, 2009 ... Staff FabGuard 8.0 advanced process control, fault detection and classification (FDC) system supports sensor and tool integration and delivers full-featured data acquisition and analysis with enterprise management capabilities. Upgraded features include added communication and ...
Helium Ion Microscope.
May 01, 2009 ... Staff The Spectra detector for the Orion Plus helium ion microscope adds structural and compositional analysis capabilities to its sub-nanometer resolution imaging capabilities. This materials-characterization technique, which is similar to other ion scattering techniques, uses ...
Non-Destructive Hall Mobility Tester.
May 01, 2009 ... Staff The LEI 1605 mobility tester for semiconductor and solar manufacturing processes manually measures electron mobility (EM). It uses contactless testing for process development, prototyping, low-volume and small-batch production. Researchers can measure electron mobility ...
Cleanroom Contamination Analysis.
May 01, 2009 ... Staff The Ambient Air CollectTorr provides semiconductor equipment manufacturers and end users a tool for molecular contaminant certification in ambient air. Using proprietary solid-state traps, it can provide ppt-level measurements of molecular acids, bases, refractory and ...
Mask Aligners.
May 01, 2009 ... Staff The EVG620NT and EVG6200NT mask aligners handle substrates of <5-150 mm and 3 in. to 200 mm, respectively. The systems use a granite base, active vibration isolation and linear motors to meet higher precision and throughput ...
Polypropylene Piping.
May 01, 2009 ... Staff PP-Pure is a pigmented high purity polypropylene piping system for pure water systems. The larger size range (up to 12 in.) makes it suitable for large facility expansions in semiconductor or photovoltaic facilities. Manufactured under stringent purity ...
Antireflective Structures for Solar.
May 01, 2009 ... Staff Designed for R&D applications, antireflective structures on standard stamps reduce the reflectivity of an interface between air (RI=1) and PMMA (RI=1.5) to <1% ....
Solar Can't Live by Efficiency Alone.
May 01, 2009 ... Aaron Hand, Executive Editor, Electronic Media For those looking at various solar cell technologies, it may be easy to get caught up in cell efficiency numbers and assume that such low conversion efficiencies couldn't possibly add up to a viable energy resource. Solar modules ...
Solar Invites Creativity.
Apr 01, 2009 ... David Lammers, News Editor There is a misconception out there that solar technology is trailing-edge stuff. According to some bearish analysts, solar cell vendors are engaged in making a commodity product, competing in a profitless industry once government subsidies are scaled ...