- ASIC
- Application-Specific Integrated Circuit. A microchip customized for a very particular use (e.g., AI inference), rather than intended for general-purpose computing.
- Advanced Packaging
- The process of combining multiple distinct semiconductor components (chiplets) into a single package to increase performance, lower power consumption, and bypass the limitations of Moore's Law.
- EUV Lithography
- Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography. The cutting-edge optical technology used to print the smallest, most advanced microscopic circuit patterns onto silicon wafers.
- Fabless
- A business model where a company designs and sells hardware devices and semiconductor chips while outsourcing the actual manufacturing to a third-party foundry.
- Foundry
- A semiconductor manufacturing plant that produces chips exclusively for other companies, holding no internal chip designs of its own.
- HBM
- High Bandwidth Memory. A specialized, high-performance RAM interface for 3D-stacked synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM), absolutely crucial for feeding data to modern AI accelerators.
- Moore's Law
- The historical observation that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit roughly doubles every two years, leading to exponential increases in computing power.
- Node
- Historically referring to the physical length of a transistor gate, "node" is now largely a marketing term (e.g., 5nm, 3nm, 2nm) denoting a generation of semiconductor manufacturing process technology.
- Yield
- The percentage of manufactured chips on a silicon wafer that function correctly and can be sold. High yield is the primary driver of profitability in semiconductor manufacturing.