🌿 lithos
@lithos_graphein
Three decades in semiconductor lithography. I run the Chip War Dashboard site; it's a live feed of the freshest semi news & market data.
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🚨 TOK raises guidance by double digits on AI-driven demand for high-purity chemicals (adv. photoresist).
Watch the materials vendors. They see the fabs’ wafer-start forecasts first—it’s a long supply chain:
Wafer starts forecast.
→ Materials vendors.
→ Batch planning
→ Raw material sub-suppliers
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28nm is not an easy node to jump into even if a fab buys the IP. It was the first true immersion lithography made device. It was the node that busted TI out of the leading edge club 20 years ago, and they are only starting to rekindle that now with the acquisition of Micron's Utah fabs (2021) and then Silicon Labs' design IP (2026).
28 nm has huge portfolio value in the foreseeable future. It will continue to make money for decades. When I see startups put out roadmaps saying they'll ramp in a year or two on 28nm I take it with a grain of salt. Easier said than done! This is a long game.
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Disco's chip packaging tool shipments hit another record high.
This could be done with any tool, except an immersion scanner.
I like how imec reframed their logic device scaling roadmap around the track layout for front/backside power and now includes the embedded memory interposer. Its complicated to visualize it all.
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Re: High-NA Chips in Production.
This means an alternate runpath to the POR multipatterning process. It's common to have competing integration flows for some modules. It allows the fabs to directly compare yield, cost, and cycle time for the new process. For memory, they may even allocate a portion of the WIP to the competing flow and sell it if it yields, although that's rare.
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Gartner's AI spend forecast growing by a $ trillion each year. Wild.
Entegris is pushing their Mo precursors for advanced node metallization.
"Molybdenum (Mo) is a promising metal for contacts and local interconnects because it offers a combination of low resistivity, high melting point, excellent thermal and chemical stability, and good electromigration resistance. It also is barrierless. This makes molybdenum well suited for advanced nodes, where traditional materials like Cu and W face scaling limitations."
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ElectronInks goes mainstream—products now available in the catalog for anyone to buy—inkjet print your own merch. Bling bling.
"applications ranging from wearable devices and biosensors to RF systems, EMI shielding, and advanced defense electronics."
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Murata is building a new production facility specifically for temperature sensors.
"increased demand for thermistor products over the medium and long term."
Used for datacenter, automotive, industrial, and mobile battery apps.
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Lithography has become so vital that the leaders of the world's nuclear powers are now personally haggling over service contracts.
imec expanding its startup support to the US--will help companies with semiconductor R&D, IP, and prototyping. This isn't a fund; is purely an expertise thing.
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Speaking of...do we know what Intel's EMIB yield is?
Wth was the yield before? I thought this was a given.
Chip War: He argues semiconductors are a matter of national security and by law unions shouldn't be allowed to strike.
"Article 41, Paragraph 2, of the Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act bars certain workers in major defense industries from striking in core functions such as manufacturing, assembly, maintenance, and performance testing. Korea has therefore accepted a clear principle: When an industry is vital to national security, strike rights may be specially limited for the broader public interest."
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🇰🇷 Jusung ships 1st ALG tool:
Atomic Layer Growth (ALG) is an evolution of Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD), but it's still unclear to me exactly how it works. Haven't seen any public info on it yet other than it operates at much lower temperatures.
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Mikron, in Zelenograd, was hit with a drone attack last May. They're apparently selling the scrap wafers as souvenirs.
CXMT has some of the strongest patterning engineers I’ve ever worked with. The only way I can describe it is pure technical aggression. They’re achieving these results with decade-old immersion scanners and still going toe-to-toe with the industry’s best. There are ways around lithography export restrictions—and I have no doubt CXMT will be the first to do it.
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CXMT RIDES ON MEMORY SUPERCYCLE
CXMT REVENUE UP >700% YoY IN 1Q26 and >600% YoY IN 1H26
CXMT IS COOKING DRAM BEYOND LPDDR (DDR MIX UP > 30%)
.@insane_analyst's stack always has a gem like this. 😂 😂
