3,801 technical terms and definitions
second sourcing intel 8080 lineage multiple manufacturers, architecture portable across fabrication lines not one company
License the Design Itself: Second-Sourcing as a Business Practice This Series Has Not Yet Named 1. A Different Kind of Reuse Than Step 16's Cost Model Describes Step 16 of this…
metrology
Microroughness is the surface height variation at spatial wavelengths below ~1 µm (typically 0.01-10 µm) — characterizing the atomic-scale and near-atomic-scale surface texture…
metrology
Spectroscopic ellipsometry and inline optical wafer metrology constitute the non-destructive physical measurement and defect detection disciplines that govern yield control across…
local interconnect semiconductor, contact over active gate, middle of line metallization, mol contacts
Self-aligned silicides and nanoscale contact metallization architectures represent the material and thermodynamic interfaces engineered to establish low-resistance ohmic…
moq, minimum order quantity, minimum quantity, how many wafers, smallest order
Minimum order quantities vary by service type, with flexible options from 5 wafers for prototyping to 25 wafers for production — including Multi-Project Wafer (MPW) programs that…
multi-die package, chiplet heterogeneous integration
Modern system-on-chip roadmaps increasingly abandon single monolithic silicon in favor of a mix and match chiplet strategy, where logic, memory, analog, and input/output functions…
millimeter-wave chips, what is millimeter-wave chips
Millimeter-wave chips process radio signals at frequencies associated with millimeter-scale wavelengths. The strict 30–300 GHz range corresponds to wavelengths of roughly 10–1 mm…
mmwave packaging dielectric loss tangent variation prediction, mmwave packaging dielectric, packaging dielectric loss, dielectric loss tangent
mmWave Packaging Dielectric Loss Tangent Variation Prediction with Machine Learning Introduction & Motivation mmWave Packaging Dielectric Loss Tangent Variation Prediction…
metal-nitride-oxide-semiconductor, charge trapping memory, nitride charge storage, non-volatile memory alternative
MNOS memory — metal-nitride-oxide-semiconductor — is an early non-volatile memory technology that stores data as charge trapped in a nitride layer within the transistor's gate…
mobile-phone chips, what is mobile-phone chips
A mobile phone depends on several semiconductor functions rather than one universal phone chip. In the 1990s context, those functions include baseband processing, radio-frequency…
metalorganic chemical vapor deposition, gas-phase epitaxy, compound semiconductor growth, production epitaxy, metalorganic precursors
MOCVD, metalorganic chemical vapor deposition, is a method of growing crystalline semiconductor layers by reacting gas-phase chemical compounds — including metalorganic precursors…
mocvd compound semiconductor composition uniformity prediction, mocvd compound semiconductor, compound semiconductor composition, semiconductor composition uniformity
MOCVD Compound Semiconductor Composition Uniformity Prediction with Machine Learning Introduction & Motivation MOCVD Compound Semiconductor Composition Uniformity Prediction…
mocvd reactor wafer carrier wobble prediction machine learning, mocvd reactor, wafer carrier wobble, cvd mocvd, mocvd reactor wafer carrier wobble prediction
MOCVD Reactor Wafer Carrier Wobble Prediction with Machine Learning Introduction & Motivation MOCVD Reactor Wafer Carrier Wobble Prediction with Machine Learning addresses…
metrology
Model-Based OCD is the computational engine behind optical scatterometry — using electromagnetic simulation (RCWA, FEM, or FDTD) to compute the expected optical response for…
process control
MPC (Model Predictive Control) in semiconductor manufacturing is a multi-variable control strategy that uses a process model to predict future outputs and optimize control actions…
Martin Atalla, Egyptian-born engineer, thermal oxide passivation, MOSFET inventor, Atalla Corporation, PIN verification, Hewlett-Packard semiconductor
Mohamed M. Atalla (1924-2009) was an Egyptian-born engineer and physicist at Bell Labs who developed the silicon-silicon dioxide surface passivation method that made reliable…
emc, mold compound, popcorn, msl, moisture sensitivity, packaging, reliability
Moisture absorption is the uptake of ambient moisture by molding compounds and package materials during storage and handling - it directly impacts moisture sensitivity level…
packaging
Moisture barrier packaging is the packaging system designed to limit moisture ingress into moisture-sensitive semiconductor components during storage and transit - it is…
msl, packaging
Moisture sensitivity level is the classification that defines how long a package can be exposed to ambient conditions before reflow without moisture damage - it is a fundamental…
packaging
Mold cavity is the shaped chamber in molding tooling where compound forms around the package structure during encapsulation - its geometry and surface condition strongly influence…
packaging
Mold chase is the upper and lower mold tooling assembly that houses cavities, runners, and gates in transfer or compression molding - it provides structural accuracy and thermal…
packaging
Mold close time is the time interval required for mold halves to close, align, and reach clamped readiness before transfer - it influences cycle efficiency and flash control…
packaging
Mold design is the engineering of tooling geometry and flow paths used to encapsulate semiconductor packages during molding - it determines fill behavior, defect rates…
packaging
Mold flash is the unwanted thin excess molding compound that escapes at mold parting lines or gaps during encapsulation - it is a common defect linked to tooling condition…
packaging
Mold temperature is the controlled tooling temperature that sets compound viscosity, flow behavior, and cure kinetics during encapsulation - it is one of the highest-impact…
packaging
Molded underfill is the packaging process where molding compound is engineered to simultaneously encapsulate the package and fill under-die interconnect gaps - it consolidates…
packaging
Molding compound is the engineered encapsulation material used to protect semiconductor packages from mechanical and environmental stress - its composition strongly influences…
packaging, units per hour, UPH, cure time quality floor, mold open time, non-value-added delay, cycle time decomposition, yield guardrails, throughput optimization
Molding cycle time is the total elapsed time for one complete molding operation — mold close, transfer and cure, mold open, part unload, and reload — and it's the single metric…
packaging
Molding process parameters is the set of controllable conditions such as temperature, pressure, timing, and transfer profile that govern encapsulation quality - they define…
MBE, atomic-layer growth, ultra-high vacuum, compound semiconductor layers, precise epitaxy
Molecular beam epitaxy is a method of growing crystalline layers on a substrate one atomic layer at a time by directing beams of atoms or molecules at a heated crystal surface…
production
A monitor wafer is a dedicated wafer processed through specific tools to check equipment performance, cleanliness, particle levels, and process quality. Purpose: Verify that…
particle monitor, film monitor, electrical monitor, SPC chart feed, tool health tracking, short loop test structure, monitor to product correlation, process drift detection, non product wafer
Monitor wafers are non-product wafers deliberately run alongside actual production wafers specifically to track ongoing tool and process health — dedicated to measurements like…
monolithic 3d transistor stack, vertical cmos integration, inter tier via process, 3d logic fabrication
Monolithic 3D Integration Process is the transistor stacking methodology that fabricates multiple active device tiers on one wafer with dense vertical connections. What It Covers…
mc simulation, statistical simulation, variance reduction, importance sampling, semiconductor monte carlo
Monte Carlo simulation is the computational method that uses random sampling to solve deterministic and stochastic problems — generating thousands or millions of random trials…
production, random sampling, virtual wafer, defect placement simulation, process parameter variation, yield distribution, tail risk, design process interaction, stochastic yield model
Monte Carlo simulation for yield uses repeated random sampling to model the full statistical distribution of semiconductor yield, simulating thousands of virtual wafers each…
TSMC founder, foundry model pioneer, pure-play foundry, fabless enabler, semiconductor industry structure
Morris Chang is the founder of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, TSMC, and the person most associated with pioneering the pure-play foundry business model, in which…
metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor, Atalla and Kahng, gate oxide, silicon dioxide, CMOS, Frank Wanlass, Solid State Device Research Conference
The 1959 MOSFET was the first working metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor, made at Bell Labs by Mohamed Atalla and Dawon Kahng in November 1959, demonstrated at…
transistor scaling, Moore's law, device shrinking, scaling benefits, semiconductor scaling
MOSFET scaling is the practice of making the transistors on an integrated circuit progressively smaller from one technology generation to the next, which is the engine behind…
mosfet scaling 1970s step 19 push toward one micron node metrology, push toward one micron node metrology
MOSFET Scaling (1970s): Step 19 — Pushing Toward the 1-Micron Node, Metrology Limits Measurement control becomes as hard a problem as process control. As the integrated flow…
semiconductor company, DRAM leader, MK4096, address multiplexing, memory industry history, 1970s memory maker
Mostek was an American semiconductor company, active primarily in the 1970s and early 1980s, best known for its leadership in dynamic memory and for the MK4096, the 4-kilobit DRAM…
Texas Instruments spin-off, semiconductor startup, DRAM company origin, 1969 founding, memory maker
The founding of Mostek in 1969 is a notable episode in semiconductor history, as the company was started by engineers who left Texas Instruments to pursue memory and other…
mainboard, system board, ATX, chipset, CPU socket, UEFI, PCIe slot
A motherboard is the main printed circuit board of a computer, the platform that physically holds the processor, memory modules and expansion cards and supplies the electrical…
magnetic tunnel junction, mtj, stt mram, sot mram, embedded mram
Emerging memory is the umbrella term for a class of non-volatile memories — chiefly MRAM, ReRAM, and PCM — that store a bit not as trapped electric charge, the way DRAM and NAND…
mueller matrix spectroscopic ellipsometry, mueller ellipsometry, full mueller matrix polarimetry, depolarization ellipsometry, mueller matrix optical metrology, mueller matrix ellipsometer
Mueller matrix ellipsometry measures how a sample transforms a set of incident polarization states into output Stokes vectors over wavelength, angle, azimuth, or position. Its 4×4…
4x4 polarization matrix, diattenuation retardance depolarization, off diagonal asymmetry detection, cross polarized elements, advanced overlay metrology, structural asymmetry detection
Mueller matrix scatterometry is an advanced form of optical scatterometry that measures a sample's complete four-by-four Mueller matrix — all sixteen elements capturing…
lithography
Multi-beam e-beam lithography uses multiple parallel electron beams writing simultaneously to overcome the fundamental throughput limitation of conventional single-beam…
lithography, beamlet array, independent blanking, raster scan writing, IMS Nanofabrication, curvilinear mask, inverse lithography, EUV mask write time, KLA MBMW
A multi-beam mask writer patterns a mask using a massively parallel array of more than 250,000 individually-controllable electron beamlets firing simultaneously, finally breaking…
multi bridge channel structure, mbcfet vs nanosheet, mbcfet fabrication process, mbcfet electrostatics
Multi-Bridge Channel FET (MBCFET): Architecture, Physics & Process Integration The Multi-Bridge Channel Field-Effect Transistor (MBCFET) is Samsung Foundry's proprietary…
multi core processor, multicore processor, chip-multiprocessor, chip multiprocessor
A multi-core processor integrates more than one processor core in a computing component. Each core provides an execution engine capable of running an instruction stream. Caches…
mcmm signoff analysis, pvt corner timing, on chip variation ocv, statistical timing analysis
Static Timing Analysis and timing closure constitute the deterministic, vector-independent verification methodology engineered to exhaustively prove that every synchronous path…