Through-silicon vias (TSV) technology could be present in chips by the end of this year or at least at the beginning of 2008. At least this is what Jan Vardaman, the president and founder of semiconductor packaging consulting firm TechSearch International, concludes in his article titled “3-D Through-Silicon Vias Become a Reality .” It is no secret that most designers could envision many ways in which these vertical interconnects could be utilized to decrease timing problems. For example, consider the ever increasing cache sizes that can be found on chips these days. If one could fold these structures in 3D rather than laying them out in 2D, the vertical interconnects could shorten the lengths of global interconnects. Additionally, floor plans could be optimized to arrange units that sit in critical paths to be stacked vertically to reduce routing distance and obtain better timing closure. But so far, while many research projects have been touting the benefits of vertical interconnects, very little of this technology has made it into commercial applications. According to Jan this is likely to change in the near future as TSV technology is moved from the research stage into the commercialization stage.

His article, which is posted over at Semiconductor International, is a short overview of TSV technology, and can be us as a springboard for additional research for the interested reader. Jan gives an extensive summary of companies and institutions that have on-going research on TSV technology. He also gives a nice overview of the three main approaches to TSV, namely a front-end process which uses deep-trench capacitor technology to create the vias, a process were vias are etched through set-aside exclusion zones, and finally a process where vias are created through the redistribution of pads and via streets. It is a relatively short read with some good illustrations so if you are interested in this topic give it a read.

Printing high-performance semiconductors on a wide range of substrates – just imagine the possibilities. Turns out, startup Semprius Inc. , which was spun out from the University of Illinois research labs but is now located in Durham, North Caroline, has taken major steps in making this a reality. As a matter of fact, the company’s progress has been so encouraging that quite some money has been flowing their way as of late. At the end of April, Semprius received $4.1 million in Series A funding from Arch Venture Partners and Intersouth Partners - both firms have quite a bit of experience in funding semiconductor startups. Additionally, just a few days ago the National Science Foundation awarded the company a grant to pursue research in processes and materials for the display industry. Key to Semprius’ success so far is the elegant method that the company is proposing for transferring transistors from a traditional substrate onto other surfaces such as glass or plastic. In short, the transistors are manufactured on a traditional and well understood substrate, leveraging conventional manufacturing techniques, thus eliminating any problems that would be introduced using non-traditional substrates. The innovation stems from the company’s ability to then peel off the finished transistor from the traditional substrate and place it onto another one. A more detailed illustration of the process can be found here. One sample application for this technology would be placing transistors directly onto an LCD back panel, which would lead to significantly faster pixel response times for the display. Other applications include: flexible displays, large area sensors, RF devices, and OLEDs. With all these interesting business opportunities looming on the horizon for the company, it will be interesting to watch whether or not Semprius will be successful at commercializing their technology.

It is hard to stay on top of news in most industries. Thus it is nice when one comes across a site that pulls a lot of information from different sources and presents them in a nice and readable format. Case in point is SemiTrends.com, a nicely laid out news aggregator of semiconductor related news. It does look like the news is posted manually, but don’t worry, the site is updated several times a day and always contains plenty of reading material. Actually, some of the manual filtering might be of value, eliminating articles that have marginal content. All posts are tagged, allowing you to click on a tag and read posts that have been tagged similarly. One can also browse the posts by categories; however, the number of categories is simply staggering, and thus hard to navigate. The authors of the site might want to consider some alphabetical binning, especially when it comes to company names. The search functionality is located below all the categories – just in case you had a hard time finding it. Overall though, it is a great site, and definitely beats surfing from one site to another to get your daily fill of semiconductor news.