SEMICON West

If you were to slice up a microchip and take a look (you’d need a really powerful microscope, I'm afraid) you would see what looks like a nanoscale layer cake.All the active circuit elements – transistors, memory cells etc. – are on the bottom. The other 90% of the chip is a maze of tiny copper wires, which we call interconnects.The history of chip development is all about shrinking circuit features. When the transistors shrink, so must the interconnects. Today, the smallest interconnects can be  fewer than 200 atoms across.In this video, I take a quick look at how the interconnect fabrication process is done and then demonstrate how our revolutionary copper reflow technology works.

It might be the understatement of the year to say that Flash memory is popular. Every year, we consume nearly twice as many bits as the year before.Consider these nuggets: Today’s smart phones have more Flash memory than a desktop computer’s hard drive from the mid-1990s. Even budget phones can capture high-definition (HD) video and share it on the web. Flash-based solid state drives have moved from exotic to commonplace in just the last couple of years.This has been made possible by a precipitous fall in the cost-per-bit. Every five years, the cost falls by an order of magnitude. How do memory makers cope with this treadmill?

Transistors are the fundamental building blocks out of which all modern electronic devices are built. Invented in the early 1950s, transistors are the semiconductor switches that control and amplify electronic signals. As demand has grown over the years for greater performance from these devices, chipmakers have responded by packing wafers with twice as many of the transistors that drive that performance every two years – a trend described by the iconic Moore’s Law. Today, an advanced microprocessor may use up to three billion transistors.

I'm sure that you’ve all watched and absorbed Jim Kawski’s introduction to ion implantation that I posted last week, right?Now, it’s time to move to the next level.

Pure silicon isn’t terribly thrilling. It’s neither a perfect insulator nor a perfect conductor. It’s somewhere in the middle.Inserting a smattering of boron or phosphorus atoms into the silicon crystal lattice really spices things up. This process is called ion implantation and it’s one of the fundamental processes used to make microchips.Since we launched new ion implantation technology today, in the form of the Applied Varian VIISta® Trident high current system, it seems a good time to take a closer look at the fundamentals of ion implantation

The megatrends of mobility, connectivity and cloud computing are propelling our industry’s growth. Mobile electronics are driving significant changes in consumer behavior including faster adoption rates for new products combined with hunger for new features, longer battery life and brighter, higher resolution, touch sensitive displays. And nowhere will Applied Materials’ role in these trends be more apparent than our presence at SEMICON West this July!I am excited to announce that Applied Materials will be on the show floor at the Moscone Center this year, where we will showcase the process capability required to build today’s transistors, interconnects and stacked IC packages, to fuel the next generation of computing technology for today’s mobile society.

We’re getting excited for this year’s SEMICON West, the flagship annual event for the global microelectronics industry. We have enjoyed building an online community through the discussion of innovation and the ideas that are shaping the world as we know it. As we’ve built this community, we’ve created several ways to connect, engage and interact with Applied Materials.This blog post highlights the various Applied Materials Social Media Communities. Please take the time to check out the different channels and we’ll post up-to-date news and information about our activities around the show through the following methods.