02/21/2005 As nanotechnology companies mature from pure research to commercialization of a product, many will face the challenge of finding appropriate facilities to conduct research, manage businesses, and in some cases, manufacture products. University labs or other government-funded laboratory facilities will no longer be sufficient.
02/18/2005 (February 18, 2005) Seoul, Korea — MagnaChip Semiconductor has agreed to acquire International System and Electronics Corp. (ISRON), a display-driver IC (DDI) company, for an undisclosed amount, subject to certain closing conditions.
02/18/2005 February 18, 2005 -- North American-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.01 billion in orders in January 2005 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 0.80, according to the January 2005 Book-to-Bill Report published today by SEMI. A book-to-bill of 0.80 means that $80 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month.
02/18/2005 February 18, 2005 - Texas Instruments Inc. has agreed to sell its large-size thin-film transistor (TFT) liquid crystal display (LCD) driver operations to Oki Electric Industry, with transfer of this Japan-based semiconductor product line to Oki by the end of March, according a TI press release. TI declined to state the financial details, but the Nihon Keizai Shimbun learned Thursday that the sale was estimated at 5 billion yen (US$47.4 million).
02/18/2005 Jack Mason has written about nanotechnology for Technology Review, Salon.com, and the publication you are now reading. But mere words from the small world weren't enough for him. The veteran journalist broadened his palette through an online eBay store called Nanotechno Fine Arts. The Web boutique shows and sells his images based on molecular engineering.
02/17/2005 (February 17, 2005) Fremont, Calif. — Aehr Test Systems announces it has received the first order for its next-generation MAX test during burn-in system from a major semiconductor manufacturer. The system is scheduled to ship in the second half of calendar 2005 to a manufacturer of communications ICs.
02/17/2005 Lawyers have been saying for years that there's going to be a big battle over nanotech intellectual property. In the past month at least two more opening salvos were fired.
Yesterday, Carbon Nanotechnologies announced its patent portfolio now numbers 30 and declared it has broad patent protection. A few weeks earlier, Dendritic NanoTechnologies consolidated the IP portfolio for dendrimer technology.
Solid State Technology has collaborated with leaders in various technical working groups of the 2004 International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) to highlight the most significant updates in the new edition of the Roadmap, as well as major challenges to be addressed in the 2005 revision.
02/16/2005 (February 16, 2005) Scotts Valley, Calif. — Carsem announces that they were presented with an Outstanding Supplier of the Year Award for calendar year 2004 from TouchSensor Technologies LLC. The award was presented by Greg Poissant, TouchSensor's director of quality, during a ceremony held at TouchSensor on February 10, 2005.
02/16/2005 February 16, 2005 - Samsung Electronics said Tuesday it will launch what it claims is the world's first commercial production of 70nm design rule-applied 4-gigabit NAND flash memory chips next month, reported the Korea Times. The chip vendor will also kick-start its first 300mm wafer flash memory production line in July.
02/16/2005 The National Science Foundation (NSF) estimates 40,000 scientists in the United States have the skills to work in nanotechnology. However, assuming that nanotechnology grows into a $1 trillion industry as the NSF estimates, 800,000 highly skilled nanotechnology workers will be needed in the country by 2015. The European Union and Asia also will require hundreds of thousands of specially trained nano workers.
Risk management – which includes asset protection – also includes people.
The group of chemical companies trying to implement their roadmap for government nanotechnology research funding priorities proposed collaboration to the semiconductor materials suppliers and users gathered at Semi's Strategic Materials Conference in mid-January.
After all these years of hype, vertical interconnects are finally starting to replace horizontal connections in real products. Infineon is directly connecting security controller chips on top of memory chips in smart cards.
02/15/2005 By M. David Levenson, Senior Editor, Lithography
Will an industry that expects optical exposure tools to print more than 100 300mm wafers/hour embrace $20 million lithography systems with throughputs below 5 wafers/hour if they don't require costly masks? If so, at what node? These were two of the questions that 110 participants tried to answer at the first Sematech Maskless Lithography (ML2) workshop, held January 17-19 in San Jose, CA.
