11/15/2004 (November 15, 2004) Morris Township, N.J.—Honeywell announces that it has acquired Mitsubishi Chemical America's 40% stake in GEM Microelectronics Materials, giving Honeywell sole ownership of the venture, which manufactures chemicals for the semiconductor industry.
11/15/2004 (November 15, 2004) San Jose, Calif.—Tessera Technologies Inc., a technology developer, licensor, and product development services provider for semiconductor chip scale and multi-chip packages (CSPs and MCPs), announces that it has signed a new technology licensing agreement with Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. (MEI), a consumer products company and semiconductor device manufacturer.
11/15/2004 (November 15, 2004) Munich, Germany—The Semiconductor Equipment Consortium for Advanced Packaging (SECAP) announces the conclusion of the venture between Amkor, its Unitive subsidiaries, and SECAP to establish the world's first high-volume, 300-mm electroplated solder bumping line using Unitive's technology.
11/15/2004 November 15, 2004 - Global sales of chipmaking equipment in September rose 50% from a year before to $3596 million, a 14th straight year-on-year increase, as demand in Taiwan and South Korea grew sharply, a SEMI-SEAJ industry survey showed, said Jiji Press Ltd.
11/15/2004 The accomplishments of Molecular Imprints and its CEO led it to one top honor and a runner-up award in the 2004 Small Times' Best of Small Tech Awards. Molecular Imprints received the Company of the Year title. Norman Schumaker, president and CEO, won a runner-up award in the business leader category.
11/15/2004 The third annual Best of Small Tech Awards is Small Times Magazine's ultimate annual performance review of the people, products and companies in micro and nanotechnology. After rigorous evaluation by nearly 30 industry leaders and experts, Small Times editors present 31 winners and runners-up who represent the best work and biggest successes in the categories of product, company business leader, researcher, innovator, advocate and lifetime achievement.
11/12/2004 (November 12, 2004) Radfeld, Austria—BE 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.
11/12/2004 Atomate Corp. has foregone the usual dreams of nanoscale manufacturing for a more practical macroscale market: the making of nano-fabrication equipment. The company has developed its own line of products to meet the special needs of the nanotech industry, where souped-up gear borrowed from the semiconductor falls short.
11/11/2004 (November 11, 2004) The Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) and the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) announce their co-sponsorship of a contest open to North American university students and faculty to create novel, low-power SoC designs that demonstrate the value of greater systems integration in IC design.
11/11/2004 (November 11, 2004) Palo Alto, Calif.—Agilent Technologies announces that Exar Corp., a provider of high-performance, mixed-signal silicon solutions for the communications infrastructure, has purchased the Agilent 93000 SoC Series for testing its high-speed communication semiconductor devices.
11/11/2004 November 11, 2004 - Amkor Technology Inc., its Unitive subsidiaries, and the Semiconductor Equipment Consortium for Advanced Packaging (SECAP) have established a high-volume 300mm electroplated solder bumping line, according to SECAP. The line, which was set up in 2003 at Unitive Semiconductor Taiwan (UST), located in Hsinchu, Taiwan, has reached volume production.
11/11/2004 November 11, 2004 - Air Products and Air Liquide have signed a long-term contract with Beijing BOE Optoelectronics Technology Co. Ltd. to supply bulk gases to its newest TFT-LCD manufacturing facility in the Beijing Economic Technological Development Area (BDA).
11/11/2004 November 11, 2004 - Samsung Electronics has developed the world's highest-capacity "fusion'' chip for wide-ranging applications in high-end mobile phones, according to a company statement, reported the Korea Times. The 1-gigabyte OneNAND fusion memory combines NAND flash memory, SRAM, and system logic in one chip.
11/11/2004 By using known manufacturing processes, a foundry can shorten development time and ensure higher yields during early fabrication runs. While that puts the onus on the foundry to offer well-defined and repeatable processes, the benefit is that customers know that a product will work right out of the gate.
11/10/2004 (November 10, 2004) Singapore—STATS ChipPAC says that it has expanded its die stacking technology to include two leadframe-based performance packages, called the exposed pad thin quad flat pack (TQFP-ep) and the quad flat no-lead (QFN). Die stacking in TQFP-ep and QFN-type packages offers high performance and low cost for consumer, communication, wireless handheld, and portable consumer applications.
11/10/2004 (November 10, 2004) Dallas, Texas—Remaining true to its position in the semiconductor industry, Texas Instruments (TI) announces that it has made significant progress in aligning its products with the European Union's (EU) Restriction on Use of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) legislation in electrical and electronic equipment.
11/10/2004 November 10, 2004 - AMD and Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing have entered into sourcing and manufacturing agreements where Chartered will implement under license portions of AMD's automated precision manufacturing software suite and become an additional manufacturing source of AMD64 microprocessors, according to Asia Pulse Pte Ltd.
