Manufacturing ICs the neural way

To offset the enormous investment of semiconductor companies, chip manufacturers must innovate to a greater degree in the fabrication processes themselves. The aim is to employ the latest computer hardware and software developments-namely, computer-integrated manufacturing of integrated circuits (or IC-CIM)-to optimize the cost-effectiveness of IC manufacture, much as computer-aided design (CAD) revolutionized the economics of circuit design. Here, the author describes how neural networks have recently emerged as a powerful aid in a computer-integrated manufacturing of ICs. Such neural networks help engineers infer subtle input-output relationships