As we race to keep up with Moore’s Law, the semiconductor manufacturing industry is facing unprecedented challenges. Mission-critical industries such as automotive are driving demand for higher-quality devices that can work longer and more reliably. At the same time, more advanced semiconductor nodes require complex, expensive materials and manufacturing processes. In combination, these pressures squeeze the semiconductor industry, which is expected to test more complex parts with greater reliability and throughput, all without increasing costs.
What’s to be done? Throughout the carefully choreographed semiconductor manufacturing process — involving design and mask generation, wafer fabrication and testing, assembly and packaging — data are being generated that are essential to improving all parts of the semiconductor ecosystem. By finding areas where the ecosystem can cooperate while maintaining the IP that ensures differentiation and competitive advantage, the semiconductor industry can maintain the pace of innovation while reducing costs and speeding time to market.
How can the semiconductor manufacturing industry make strategic use of the critical data and advanced analytics that are already available today? With a shared goal in mind, our industry can and should carefully collaborate while preserving the competitive differentiation through which individual companies thrive. One obvious area of collaboration involves moving toward well-defined data standards, whether those are standard file formats for different aspects of the semiconductor lifecycle or a standard means of sharing data that allow every player in the value chain to maintain their differentiation and competitive edge while enabling interoperability.
Regan Mills explains why the greater semiconductor ecosystem should prioritize the collaboration that will benefit us all in Keeping the Pace of Moore’s Law through Industry Collaboration, in Semiconductor Digest
Regan Mills is the Vice President and General Manager of SOC Product Marketing for the Semiconductor Test division at Teradyne. Prior to Teradyne, Regan held management positions at Automation Engineering Incorporated and Arctic Sand Technologies. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Master of Science degree in electrical engineering, control systems, digital signal processing and analog design from Boston University.