09/18/2003 SEPT. 18--SYRACUSE, NY--Production was down for only 24 hours at Cold Springs, an international quartz crystal sensor and thin film-coating manufacturer, while a modular cleanroom manufactured by SBB Inc. was relocated to a new, larger facility.
09/18/2003 At the height of the SARS outbreak last spring, Doug Beplate's Emergency Filtration Products Inc. was scrambling to produce as many of its nanoparticle filtration masks as possible, particularly in the Asian markets hardest hit by the communicable virus. Demand has subsided temporarily, but Beplate believes the market for the technology will grow.
09/18/2003 Sept. 18, 2003 – Lightconnect Inc., a Newark, Calif., MEMS component supplier, announced a new compact variable optical attenuator, according to a news release. The Fast VOA 5000 measures 5.4 mm x 18 mm and is designed the withstand mechanical shock and vibration. Applications include power control and equalization, receiver and channel protection, on/off switching, and others.
09/17/2003 Privacy groups could slow down RFID chip growth
The optimism surrounding Wal-Mart's June announcement that strongly encouraged its top 100 suppliers to start using radio frequency identification (RFID) tags by 2005 (see WaferNews, V10n24, June 16, 2003) may have been premature.
(September 17) Click here for these and more WaferNews briefs.
09/17/2003 In Switzerland, as elsewhere, nanotech's media honeymoon appears to have ended. Gone are the fantastic tales of nanotechnology's promise, replaced instead by dark fears of what nanoparticles might do to humans and the environment. The Swiss media not only devoted scant coverage to the country's first-ever Nanofair last week, the little reporting there was focused primarily on the potential negatives.
09/17/2003 Zyvex Corp., a Richardson, Texas developer of nanotechnology tools and products, and Keithley Instruments Inc., a Cleveland provider of optical and electrical measurement solutions, announced an agreement to collaborate in nanotechnology.
09/17/2003 Sept. 17, 2003 – Silicon Microstructures Inc., a Milpitas, Calif., developer and manufacturer of MEMS-based silicon pressure sensors and custom microstructures, announced the completion of its MEMS fab expansion and renovation.
09/17/2003 Sept. 17, 2003 – Magfusion Inc., a Chandler, Ariz., developer of RF MEMS switches, announced the completion of a facility expansion the company said will allow it to bring more production in-house. The project included the installation of new production equipment and building modifications at its Arizona headquarters.
09/16/2003 September 11, 2003 - Siemens Dematic hopes to strengthen its business for microbeam lasers, used to create tiny drillings for bonding circuit path levels, with a new sales office in Taiwan.
09/16/2003 September 15, 2003 - Bookham Technology, Oxfordshire, UK, has finished consolidating its wafer fab facilities in Caswell, UK, four months ahead of schedule.
09/16/2003 September 15, 2003 - Shin-Etsu Chemical plans to invest $830 million in new facilities by the end of this year, and double the output of 300mm wafers in Japan to 200,000 wafers/year, according to local reports.
09/16/2003 September 15, 2003 - Matsushita says it will invest over $85 million in its operations in Singapore, part of which will go towards the island republic's first facility for manufacturing CCD image sensors.
09/16/2003 September 15, 2003 - Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC), Shanghai, China, is reportedly considering buying a stake in an idle chip plant owned by Motorola in Tianjin, China.
09/16/2003 September 15, 2003 - Taiwanese chipset maker Silicon Integrated Systems Corp. has proposed a plan to spin off its 8-in. wafer fab into a fully-owned subsidiary, stifling rumors of a possible sale to major shareholder United Microelectronics Corp.
09/16/2003 September 15, 2003 - Semitool, Kalispell, MT, a supplier of wafer surface prep and deposition systems, says it will take a $15-$17 million charge in 4Q03 related to inventory writedowns.
