11/19/2004 November 19, 2004 - South Korean company Intellect has proposed setting up a multifab chip-manufacturing facility near Hyderabad, India, with a US$1.6 billion investment. A team from the company visited the Andhra Pradesh regional government in September and assessed several locations near Hyderabad for the project.
11/19/2004 Until now, Texas Instruments has effectively owned the market for rear-projection televisions that use micromirrors, but three other outfits developing MEMS projection technologies could challenge it in the years ahead. This could create more price competition and present consumers with a potentially dizzying array of TV technology choices.
11/18/2004 (November 18, 2004) Willow Grove, Pa.—Kulicke & Soffa recorded net income of $29.1 million in the March quarter and $22.7 million in the June quarter, but now it's back to lean times. Reported net income of $3.3 million or $0.05 per fully diluted share on net revenues of $147.5 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2004.
11/18/2004 November 18, 2004 - Spansion LLC of California will invest more than 100 billion yen (US$961 million) to build a flash memory chip production line in Japan capable of handling advanced 300mm wafers, company officials said, according to Kyodo News International.
11/18/2004 Congress adjourned, temporarily, last month with at least one tax initiative in place to benefit the nanotech industry and other sectors. But it left other key issues on the floor until next session or to finish in a lame-duck session this month. Congress passed an 18-month extension of the research and development tax credit at the end of September as part of a package of middle-class tax cuts.
11/17/2004 Worldwide demand for chip manufacturing equipment continued to slow down in October, and capacity utilization rates are inching toward slipping below the 80% mark, according to VLSI Research.
11/17/2004 November 17, 2004 - The total investment planned for the STMicroelectronics and Hynix Semiconductor joint-venture project to build a front-end memory-manufacturing facility in China is US$2 billion, said the companies. It will be financed with equity from both partners (Hynix 67%, ST 33%), US$250M of long-term debt from ST, as well as a financing package from Chinese local financial institutions, which will involve debt and a long leasehold.
11/17/2004 (November 17, 2004) Taipei, Taiwan—U.S. chipmaker Analog Devices Inc. (ADI) is introducing a chipset for China's nascent 3G mobile communications standard.
11/17/2004 Microfluidics took its flagship product, the Microfluidizer, and redesigned its reaction chamber to allow quick spurts of ingredients to slam into each other. Once broken into molecule-sized components, the reactor recrystallizes the mixture until particles reach the desired size, and then it stops the process.
11/16/2004 (November 16, 2004) Hsinchu, Taiwan—ChipMOS Technologies Ltd. announces that Mr. Jerome Chao-Jung Tsai was appointed to the company's Board of Directors, replacing Mr. Min-Liang Chen, who resigned due to time constraints.
11/16/2004 November 16, 2004 - Honeywell has acquired Mitsubishi Chemical America's 40% stake in GEM Microelectronics Materials, said Honeywell, giving the company sole ownership of the venture, which manufactures chemicals for the semiconductor industry. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
11/16/2004 November 16, 2004 - The Export-Import Bank of the US (Ex-Im Bank) has approved a $652 million loan guarantee to support the export of US equipment and services to build a new silicon wafer fabrication facility in Singapore specializing in ASICs.
11/16/2004 There's good news for nano center builders. New construction in the U.S. and the world at universities and national labs is adding more business to the economy. Building nano center facilities is a tricky job. Much of the complexity stems from the fact that the new or remodeled labs are often in the middle of existing campuses.
