01/01/2004 Molecular contamination has made its way into the cleanroom management vernacular; now it's time to put a smart control system into action. Here's how it's done.
01/01/2004 Gaining SEMI F57 compliance can help reduce commissioning time of fluid-handling systems, improve wafer yields, increase semiconductor equipment life and round off your contamination-control program
01/01/2004 To bridge the gap between biology and electronics in neurons on chip, IMEC, the University Hospital of Leuven (Leuven, Belgium) and Hebrew University (Jerusalem, Israel) researchers are exploring new transducer concepts, surface chemistry solutions and packaging techniques. We believe that the key to efficient and reliable ionoelectronic devices is surface chemistry.
01/01/2004 Robert Morris likened the IBM Corp. cleanrooms where James Moore and Alida Hernandez worked to an unfiltered and untreated swimming pool where as many who had swam had urinated.
01/01/2004 Hoping to prevent the same compliance and contamination issues that have plagued the company for more than two years, CryoLife Inc., the nation's largest supplier of living human tissue, has employed a patented technology that will minimize pathogens in donor tissue.
01/01/2004 After slogging through more than a month of expert testimony and sometimes dramatic legal proceedings, jurors in the ongoing trial against the IBM Corp. (Armonk, N.Y.) and several chemical companies took a two-week break for Christmas.
01/01/2004 Using syringes free of contamination to transfer sterile drugs and manually measuring and mixing no more than three products to compound drug admixtures and nutritional solutions must be done in an air quality of ISO Class 5 or better, according to newly released guidelines from the United States Pharmacopeia.
01/01/2004 Leading manufacturers of semiconductor equipment expected sales to increase in 2003 to $21.4 billion—more than eight percent above the $19.8 billion in sales posted in 2002, according to the year-end edition of the Capital Equipment Consensus Forecast, released by Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (San Jose, Calif.).
01/01/2004 Each New Year brings with it a hope for continued growth and prosperity. This year is no exception. Let's face it; the last two years in electronics assembly have been grim. However, most signs point upward for 2004.
01/01/2004 Business is booming at most of the major assembly and test subcontractors. More of them returned to profitability in the third quarter of 2003, some saw record revenue, and most gave an optimistic outlook for the fourth quarter.
01/01/2004 How many times has an advanced technology/engineering marvel been implemented into a new or existing product, only to be thrown over the fence to the manufacturing group?
01/01/2004 System-in-package (SiP) has long been "next year's technology" when considering the introduction of new packaging concepts. While OEMs and original design manufacturers (ODM) expect plug-and-play solutions, the design cycle for traditional system-on-chip (SOC) often runs to 18 months for advanced designs.
01/01/2004 The classic function of a socket is to provide a connection mechanism from the IC to the circuit board with as little electrical load as possible. This allows the IC to function as it is soldered into the printed circuit board (PCB), but can be replaced by another IC to upgrade or test multiple ICs.
01/01/2004 Heat generation rates in electronic components and systems continue to increase, as performance expectations rise and sizes are decreased. Traditionally, the key metric for defining the thermal challenge has been the heat flux, or the rate of heat generation per unit area.
01/01/2004 As the industry continues to shrink die sizes and package footprint requirements, increase clock speeds and demand greater thermal performance, package design selection now goes well beyond a simple assessment based on physical attributes.
12/31/2003 (December 31, 2003) Framingham, Mass.—As 2003 closes, growth expectations for the semiconductor market are on the rise, particularly after a very strong recovery in the second half of the year. Market research group IDC is forecasting a healthy growth rate of 18 percent in 2004.
12/31/2003 (December 31, 2003) Hsinchu, Taiwan—ChipMOS Technologies Inc., an IC packaging and testing company, has signed syndicated loan agreements with five Taiwanese banks worth NT$2 billion to purchase equipment to expand its assembly and testing capacity.
12/31/2003 (December 31, 2003) Singapore—ST Assembly Test Services Ltd. (STATS), an independent semiconductor test and advanced packaging service provider, has appointed Eleana Tan Ai Ching as alternate director to non-executive director, Tay Siew Choon, effective January 2, 2004. She replaces Gan Chee Yen, who stepped down.
