Features

Saturday 8th July 2006

The perfect circle Conscientious decision making. Important factors to be considered in high performance automated production, Aerotech discusses enabling technology.

Saturday 8th July 2006

A Phoenix from the ashes Not all dreams went up in smoke. Nine months on after fire devastated Innos and University of Southampton joint fab, David Ridsdale, EuroAsia Semiconductor speaks with Innos to discover how this led to unexpected opportunities.

Saturday 8th July 2006

The ecclectic electric awardsA chance to commend and celebrate the ingenuity of the next generations of creative innovation in the electronics industry where your votes count with the IC Industry Awards.

Saturday 1st July 2006

Recent developments in MEMS resonator technology have yielded silicon microelectromechanical resonators with significant advantages over the quartz crystal technology that has dominated the timing market since the mid-1940s. It is expected that oscillators built with this new technology will offer smaller form factor, improved reliability, and lower solution cost. MEMS oscillators will displace a significant number of the roughly 10 billion quartz crystals and oscillators that go into consumer, medical, networking, communications, automotive, and industrial equipment each year. Aaron Partridge, Chief Technical Officer, and John McDonald, Vice President, of SiTime Corporation discuss the history and upcoming changes.

Saturday 1st July 2006

Jean Christophe Eloy of Yole Développement discusses the state of the MEMS industry for 2005 and highlights key areas for 2006 with a focus on the change from MEMS devices to MEMS modules that integrate into the electronics world.

Saturday 1st July 2006

Sercel and TRONIC'S Microsystems, have collaborated for the production of a new generation of seismic sensors, or geophones, based on MEMS. Designed by CEA Leti, the 0.1µg resolution accelerometer packaged under vacuum has been optimised and industrialized by TRONIC'S Microsystems.

Saturday 1st July 2006

An American company recently announced the release of their initial MEMS product which they state was the first made using existing CMOS platform manufacturing capability. Building MEMS in such a way would see the same volume and time to market as current silicon product. David Ridsdale spoke with Akustica to see if this is the manufacturing revolution some have waited for.

Saturday 1st July 2006

According to market research company YOLE Développement, the MEMS market reached $ 5.1 Billion in 2005 and is expected to reach $ 9.7 Billion in 2010, representing a compound annual growth rate of almost 15%. For the fourth year in a row, MEPTEC, the MicroElectronics Packaging and Test Engineering Council, brought together leading experts in the MEMS field to discuss the topic as it relates to packaging in its technical symposium "MEMS Packaging Trends: From Production to Market" held on May 17 & 18th, 2006 in San Jose, CA. By Jody Mahaffey, JDM Resources.

Thursday 1st June 2006

With the increasing penetration of flip-chip technology into the 300 mm wafer-level packaging (WLP) market, requirements for process performance of solder bump technology have become more stringent. One of the biggest challenges for 300 mm WLP processing is the control of undercut and uniformity during etching of under-bump metal (UBM). Lucy Chen, David Chen, Jackie Chen of SEZ Taiwan present the results of UBM etching for Ti/NiV/Cu, TiW/Cu, Ti/Cu based bumps using a single-wafer spin processor that can provide a solution for stringent undercut control.

Thursday 1st June 2006

Smart power is a feature of an increasing number of domestic and industrial appliances. Reduced power consumption leads naturally to operating cost and environmental benefits. Fairchild Semiconductor developers; Jun-Bae Lee, Jun-Ho Song, Dae-Woong Chung, Bum-Seok Suh, Motion Control System Team , Functional Power Group, describe how the adoption of direct bonded copper substrate packaging has enabled increased power ratings for its latest Motion-SPM smart power module devices.

Thursday 1st June 2006

Starting out in the microelectronics world is a risky adventure. The average cost of seeing a chip design into production is around ten million US dollars. Manufacturing has differentiated into traditional and emerging opportunities that have led to investments from local government and industry for research and development centres of excellence around the world. David Ridsdale went to Hong Kong to discover why the new Science & Technology Park is enabling companies an entry point where they may not have had one.

Thursday 1st June 2006

The convergence of phone, multimedia and PDA functionality in today's mobile devices are driving manufacturers to use different memory packaging solutions. The applications processors that allow today's phones to be multi purpose require NAND Flash to store the complex programs and mobile SDRAM performance to provide the user with the best possible experience. Kurt Gusinow, final test market development manager in the Semiconductor Test Systems division of Agilent Technologies Inc explains.

Sunday 14th May 2006

The manufacturing world of semiconductors has seen great change with emerging opportunities and technology arriving every day. Many issues drive the manufacturing challenges and companies look at every part of the process to improve performance, cost and yields. Maintaining an accurate power supply during manufacturing has become a key issue and Dr. Dirk Ochs and Dr. Thomas Rettich of Huettinger Elektronik in Germany discuss application needs for power stability.

Sunday 14th May 2006

IBM has announced that its researchers have built the first complete electronic integrated circuit around a single ‘carbon nanotube’ molecule, a new material that shows promise for providing enhanced performance over today’s standard silicon semiconductors.

Sunday 14th May 2006

keeping the secrets in and privacy invaders out. How best to safe guard the companies privates during an era of multi user access and privileged account holders. Calum Macleod, European Director of Cyber-Ark, discusses a plan of defence.

Sunday 14th May 2006

On March 17th a leading manufacturer of electron beam lithography celebrated 10 years of innovation in the industry. Vistec Electron Beam GmbH marked the occasion for its 10th anniversary in Jena, Germany. The name may not be so familiar yet as a new moniker was one of the birthday presents for the company. David Ridsdale reports on the anniversary.

Sunday 14th May 2006

Semiconductor 2K will hold it’s annual conference in Edinburgh under the auspices of JemiUK in June this year. The yearly event has grown in confidence and stature over the last few years. Bedwyr Humphreys and Mike Smyth, members of the JemiUK board of directors outline what can be expected in 2006.

Monday 1st May 2006

By 2008, MEMS production of devices enabled by deep silicon reactive ion etch (Si DRIE) is expected to reach more than 3 billion units, almost doubling in four years [1]. Attendant with this growth are tighter on-wafer specifications and increased yield on larger wafers having smaller features, resulting in demand for precision etching systems equivalent to those used in the semiconductor industry. Steve Lassig, Program Manager for MEMS and Advanced Packaging Etch Group at LAM Research Corp. discusses

Monday 1st May 2006

Ramping from R&D to volume production is always challenging. However, SUSS MicroTec's Chief Scientist for wafer bonding, Dr Sharon Farrens, believes that common problems such as reproducibility of tool performance, delivery schedule and qualification times do not have to be among the ramp headaches.

Monday 1st May 2006

New applications for deep reactive ion etch require exacting specifications for high rates and precision with excellent uniformity. As more complex MEMS devices go into production exacting methods are required to achieve the required manufacturing methods. Surface Technology Systems (STS) Chief Technology Officer Dr Leslie Lea explores some of the issues.

Monday 1st May 2006

The future of DRIE technology is now widening thanks to its recognition as an enabling technology. Manufacturers are looking to increase capacity by improving throughputs and controlling costs. Alcatel describes its productivity enhancements.

Saturday 1st April 2006

Akustica, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology manufacturer, announced availability of Akustica Microphone Chips, single-chip microphones to the market.

Saturday 1st April 2006

The International Electronics Forum has become one of the most highly regarded events on the international electronics schedule. It is a chance for high level executives to gather and discuss key issues affecting the industry without the restraints of industry body agenda. David Ridsdale looks at what to expect.

Saturday 1st April 2006

Nano-fillers differ from conventional reinforcement in terms of the dimensions of the reinforcing phase being in the nanometres scale, i.e. three to four orders of magnitude smaller. In many cases, the geometric distribution of these discrete phases may also be unique, such as the formation of co-continuous morphology or interpenetrating network. Conceptually, nano-reinforcement of amorphous fluoropolymers presents a new opportunity in overcoming the detrimental effects associated conventional compounding technology, such as contamination and reduced heat and chemical resistances