Headlines
Background
AIM Solutions bridges metrology gap between interferometry and AFM
Replacing lenses with algorithms, Eindhoven-based AIM Solutions believes it can fill an important gap between today’s optical and scanning-probe semiconductor metrology tools. The startup eyes advanced packaging as its first target market.
Opinion
Machines that think: sensing the world
This is the eighth part in a series on how AI is crossing out of software and into the physical world. This time, Jan Bosch looks at the layer that does the verifying and what it actually costs to install.
Background
Why Groove is betting quantum computing’s future rests on germanium
Silicon has been the semiconductor industry’s workhorse for more than half a century, but Delft startup Groove Quantum believes its cousin germanium is better positioned to support large-scale quantum computers.
Interview
“You can’t tell top experts that they have to follow the rules”
Budi Sastra gathered geniuses in his group at Philips Research (Natlab). It was also home to some of the most headstrong characters. They made inventions that ASML and Philips Healthcare still benefit from today. Bits&Chips visited Sastra in Singapore, where he continues to coach high-tech companies.
Background
Modernization of movable football pitch system
Since 2001, the movable football pitch of FC Schalke 04, the famed German “Traditionsverein,” has witnessed many memorable matches. All those years, its mechanical drive system had been performing well, but an electrical system upgrade became necessary. Last summer, Dutch industrial automation company Kremer modernized the system using Beckhoff PC-based control technology and prepared it for smart energy management and predictive maintenance.
Interview
“AI has made it crystal clear: Compute has never mattered more”
Imec CEO Patrick Vandenameele on scaling and Europe in the age of AI.
Background
Dutch quantum enters its make-or-break phase
The Netherlands still ranks among the world’s quantum leaders, but other nations are investing at an entirely different scale. Dutch quantum leaders argue that maintaining the country’s lead now depends more on industrial policy than on scientific breakthroughs.
Top job
Events
Courses
Editorial
The Nexperia crisis: inevitable or precipitated by circumstance?
There are two ways to read Nexperia’s fate: as the predictable conclusion of a Chinese takeover or as collateral damage from the US-China technology war.
Editorial
AI safety: Engineering can’t fix what science doesn’t understand
AI top dog Jensen Huang is confident that engineers can and will tame AI’s risks. That confidence is misguided.
Background
Outsourcing wafer handler to VDL ETG fails, ASML takes back full control
Around 2012, key supplier VDL ETG assumed full product responsibility for ASML’s wafer handler. The mission failed.
Editorial
Less spreadsheets, more courage
VDL ETG was capable of pulling off the wafer handler job for ASML, but the willingness to invest simply wasn’t there.
Background
Thermal ageing in molded power inductors: a hidden reliability risk
Why a stable inductance value doesn’t always guarantee stable performance at high temperature and high frequency.
Analysis
High-NA wasn’t quite finished after all
A design decision for high-NA lithography that ASML had to make before EUV had even proved itself has proved troublesome for logic makers.
Background
Trustworthy AI for IC sign-off and manufacturing
As artificial intelligence moves deeper into semiconductor workflows, trust is becoming one of the last barriers to broad industry adoption. In IC design-to-sign-off, the most valuable AI systems won’t be the most autonomous, but the most transparent, governable and reliable.