January - 2013 - issue > View Point

Trends and Challenges in Semiconductor Manufacturing

Subramanyan Dakshinamoorthy

Vice President, Worldwide Operations-IDT

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Forward

Integrated Device Technology, Inc (NASDAQ: IDTI) designs, manufactures, and markets low-power, high-performance mixed-signal semiconductor solutions for the advanced communications, computing, and consumer industries. Headquartered in San Hose, CA the company has a market cap of $ 982.59 million.

Trends in the semiconductor industry

The demand for small, smart, mobile, powerful and low-power devices that can access data whenever and wherever will drive the semiconductor industry to come up with innovative solutions. The continued advances in lithographic techniques enable the fabrication of devices with finer and finer geometries. Several companies have announced the manufacturing of devices at the 14nm node within the next 12 to 18 months. This coupled with advances in film technology and the use of strained lattices and others, has made a path for very high-speed, low-leakage devices. Advances in packaging technology, including TSVs, WLCSP, HDL, 2.5-D and 3-D packaging, Cu pillars and MCP, are driving integration toward smaller and smaller footprints!

Companies whose products need “bleeding edge” technologies and those in the analog world that are two generations behind in technology but have unique process requirements are driving the requirements, while not necessarily in two different directions, certainly at a different pace.