Over 70 years ago the first transistor was invented by William Shockley and his colleagues at Bell Labs in 1947, which was proven the most remarkable electronics event of the 20th century as it later opened a new era of the integrated circuit (IC) and microprocessor that are the basis of modern electronics. Engineers learnt from making electronic devices with one single transistor to integrating many on the same chip, and the first IC was given birth in 1957. Since then the industry has undergone fast evolutions on the process technology development with the number of transistors on an IC increasing exponentially each year, a process known as Moore’s Law.
As predicted by Moore’s Law, semiconductor foundries release new technology node every two years since the very first commercial technology node 10 um which was gave birth at Intel in 1971. Over the last decades we witnessed the emergence of many technology nodes, to name a few of the milestones, 1 um, 0.18 um, 0.13 um, 65 nm, 32 nm, 22 nm, 14 nm, 7 nm, as well as the most advanced 5nm and 3nm that are predicted in the near future by the semiconductor roadmap. Every generation advance of the technology node involves the transfer of innovative sciences and technologies to high volume manufacturing, and this is the result of a highly coordinated research-development- manufacturing collaboration. And this collaboration successfully combines several branches of science, including physics, chemistry, mechanics, mathematics and computer sciences, to build products of ever-increasing complexity.
As an effort to enhance the semiconductor process research-development-manufacturing connection and boost the innovative technology transfer, I am delighted to present the Journal of Microelectronic Manufacturing (JoMM). Founded by the Institute of Microelectronics of Chinese Academy of Sciences (IMECAS). JoMM is an international, open access, peer-reviewed journal, devoted to publishing research on the cutting-edge microelectronic manufacturing technology. It intends to promote the academic, industrial exchange and collaboration among international enterprises, universities and institutes. The scope of the journal covers studies of advanced semiconductor manufacturing sciences and technologies from early stage theories and experiments to industrial high volume manufacturing applications, including but is not limited to Design, Process, Metrology, Yield Control, Materials, Packaging and Equipment. In detail, Design welcomes the layout, DFM, DTCO and other related reports; Process focuses on the patterning, modules, integration, simulations and experimental verifications; Metrology & Yield Control reports progresses in the latest CD/OVL/Defectivity and other process stability control manners; Materials report the characterization and improvement of currently applied materials, as well as the demonstration of new materials towards current or next generation technology nodes; Packaging and Equipment will include the bonding or equipment design, manufacturing, operation, test and other relative aspects that applies to the fab application.
We believe the above mentioned areas can provide a broad view of topics through the life time of a chip in the fab, from a bare wafer to a tested device that is deliverable to customers. We wish JoMM could help readers better understand the frontiers of the integrated circuit manufacturing and assist in the application of novel technologies.
We would like to acknowledge JoMM editors and editorial board members who are global distinguished researchers in this field for their help to establish the JoMM. We are grateful to our sponsor IMECAS for the generous support. We thank our authors who contributed manuscripts to JoMM and we appreciate the reviewers who voluntarily provided their valuable suggestions.
