A break from tariff news, the semiconductor industry has another pesky problem: randomness! An article at TechRadar outlines a new whitepaper from Fractilia that exposes “stochastic variability” as a leading culprit behind low manufacturing yields at advanced fabs.

“Stochastic variability is contributing to multibillion-dollar delays in introducing advanced process technology into high volume manufacturing,” said Fractilia CTO Chris Mack. “We have seen our customers make dense features as small as 12 nanometers in research and development. But when they try to move it into manufacturing, stochastic failures are affecting their ability to achieve acceptable yield, performance and reliability.”

As chipmakers continue to go smaller into the nanoscale, randomness (at the atomic level) becomes a real problem. The solution is probability based measurement and design, something we aren’t normally solving for on the factory floor. Read the full article here.