Total prizes amounting to $75,000 will be awarded to winning submissions. Finalists will have an opportunity to have their designs fabricated by MOSIS in an advanced 180-nm CMOS technology. Major partner companies providing funding for the fabrication phase of the challenge include: AMD, AMI, Analog Devices, Cadence, Freescale, IBM, Intel, National Semiconductor, and Texas Instruments.

(November 12, 2004) Radfeld, Austria&#8212BE Semiconductor Industries N.V. (Besi) and Datacon Technology AG (Datacon) announce that both business groups will merge to form a global advanced packaging supplier. Besi will take over 100% of Datacon’s shares, in return for which Datacon shareholders will receive 90% cash as well as shares from Besi. The merger is likely to take place in January 2005, once all antitrust and other formal matters have been clarified.