Friday 8th November 2002
Statistical process control is widely used for high-volume epitaxy, but as Paul Cooke and colleagues explain, care must be taken in the selection and measurement of the parameters.
Friday 8th November 2002
The manufacturing of GaAs ICs is a high-volume business, and as such is subject to the same production management techniques used in other industries. Roger Yin and colleagues describe the successful implementation of the KMTI model at GCTC.
Friday 8th November 2002
Failure mode and effects analysis provides a framework for rapid design and manufacturing implementation that has contributed to the successful launch of a new product suite by MetroPhotonics, according to Steven Martin and Bedwyr Humphreys.
Friday 8th November 2002
Hoping to emulate its past successes with GaAs, DARPA has launched a new initiative this year in an effort to make wide-bandgap semiconductors a cost-effective, high-performance electronic technology to fulfill the military's need for compact high-power devices, writes Jon Newey.
Friday 8th November 2002
Established silicon-on-insulator processes have helped CMOS to reach higher speeds. With new strained silicon processes on the silicon industry's roadmap, it was only a matter of time before somebody combined the new technology with a buried oxide, but at what cost?
Tuesday 8th October 2002
Handset manufacturers are hoping that a host of new models featuring cameras, color screens and multimedia messaging capabilities will result in strong shipment numbers towards the end of 2002. But if they're wrong, it may spell a new disaster for the supply chain, writes Tim Whitaker.
Tuesday 8th October 2002
Computer modeling of fluid dynamics has brought great benefits to those designing semiconductor equipment and processes. Jon Newey looks at an example of how modeling is being applied to the understanding of what happens during GaN epitaxy and how this relates to material quality.
Tuesday 8th October 2002
Increasing the speed of GaAs backside via etching is the current mission for manufacturers of dry etch tools. Young Cho and Jim Thomas of equipment manufacturer Tegal explore the new problems that high etching speeds bring, and suggest strategies for how they can be solved.
Tuesday 8th October 2002
The US Department of Defense is funding a project called SUVOS that aims to develop UV lasers and LEDs for biological agent detection and secret communication systems, writes Richard Dixon.
Tuesday 8th October 2002
The ubiquitous gate oxide material from the silicon industry, SiO2, has been successfully used to demonstrate GaN-based MOSFETs that rely on the properties of the GaN-SiO2 interface.
Tuesday 10th September 2002
The huge costs of scaling CMOS devices according to Moore's Law have left the silicon industry at a crossroads. Mayank Bulsara of AmberWave Systems describes how strained silicon technology will be able to push performance further without the need for big investment.
Tuesday 10th September 2002
Since 1998 the SiGe HBT has been an "off-the-shelf" device, closing the gap between high-volume silicon and high-performance III-V RF electronics. Looking to the future, the HFET is expected to be the next SiGe device to reach commercial markets. Thomas Hackbarth, Marco Zeuner and Ulf König discuss why they think the HFET will lead the race towards higher speed devices.
Tuesday 10th September 2002
As the demand for chip-level integration increases, the ability to successfully bond a range of materials onto a wafer is key. Shari Farrens, Viorel Dragoi, Paul Lindner and Bernhard Wieder report on the various wafer-bonding techniques that are available to chip manufacturers.
Tuesday 10th September 2002
The industry's largest event moves to San Jose, emphasizing manufacturing solutions for all types of III-V and silicon heterostructure devices. Marie Meyer previews CS-MAX 2002.
Tuesday 10th September 2002
While GaAs and SiGe are the obvious choices for manufacturing devices for 5-6 GHz WLANs, lower noise figures achieved through the control of parasitics are keeping CMOS in the frame.
Tuesday 13th August 2002
The latest OIDA workshop challenged all players in the photonics industry to develop a roadmap to guide the industry to the next stage of manufacturing maturity, reports Richard Dixon from Photonics Manufacturing, a workshop held at Boston University.
Tuesday 13th August 2002
VSK Photonics, a start-up fiber-optic component manufacturer, took less than five months to build its InP wafer fab, and the project came in under budget, write John Lungo and Ramin Rofagha.
Tuesday 13th August 2002
New materials, high-performance devices and next-generation technologies were all covered at IPRM 2002. Colombo Bolognesi reports on a show that provided delegates with a glimpse of what the future holds for InP.
Tuesday 13th August 2002
MOVPE may be a mature technology that is widely used in manufacturing, but nitrides and optical monitoring provoked much of the discussion at this year's IC-MOVPE, writes Jon Newey.
Tuesday 13th August 2002
The ability to assemble and solder thousands of individual chips simultaneously into a circuit may spell the beginning of the end for the pick-and-place assembly of components.
Tuesday 9th July 2002
Compound semiconductor materials are ideally suited for the development of spintronic devices thanks to the ability to epitaxially grow ferromagnetic metals on their surfaces.
Tuesday 9th July 2002
Business conditions might have been difficult lately, but as Jon Newey discovered at GaAs Mantech, the GaAs industry is busy developing new technologies and business plans to address the market as growth returns.
Tuesday 9th July 2002
Low-resistance metal interconnects and spin-on low-k dielectric materials such as BCB have been widely used in GaAs IC manufacturing, writes Philip Garrou of Dow Chemical.
Tuesday 9th July 2002
As the market continues to demand lower cost optical communications, component makers are turning to integration. Streamlined bonding and alignment will bridge the gap between discrete and integrated components write Robert Green and Stuart Morgan of Bookham Technology.
