Impacts of imminent changes in the semiconductor industry

One of the most critical issues facing the semiconductor industry today is the fact that the cost per transistor is increasing for the first time in decades. The semiconductor industry has several current or near-term transitions, which can be characterized as industry inflection points. Those inflection points are being driven by both technology transition issues (e.g. 450mm, EUV, 3D transistors) and industry consolidation. We will review some of the key aspects and concerns of these industry inflections. There is a continued drive for fabs to become more efficient, faster and more agile and we will highlight some of the areas where modeling will be utilized to implement smarter decision-making software tools for manufacturing.