03/19/2008 ; North American-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.23 billion in orders in February 2008 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 0.93, according to SEMI's February 2008 Book-to-Bill Report published today. A book-to-bill of 0.93 means that $93 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month.
03/19/2008 NanoBioMagnetics Inc. (NBMI), a nanobiomaterials company with core technology focused on designed structures of magnetically responsive nanoparticles to cause or drive a desired physiological event, announced the issuance of its first patent by the US Patent and Trademark Office.
03/19/2008 Surface Technology Systems plc (STS), which deals with plasma process technologies required in the manufacturing and packaging of MEMS and advanced electronic devices, has sold a Pegasus Deep Reactive Ion Etch (DRIE) tool to the Institut für Halbleiter- und Mikrosystemtechnik (IHM, or Semiconductor & Microsystems Technology Laboratory).
03/19/2008 Atomate Corporation has launched a series of products for the "do-it-yourself" customers who wish to upgrade existing CVD systems or build new systems themselves.
03/19/2008 Tegal Corporation has received an order for a Tegal 6540 plasma etch tool from the Pennsylvania State University. The Tegal 6540 system will be installed in the Penn State Nanofabrication Laboratory, a National Science Foundation National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network site
03/19/2008 Fort Washington, PA-based Kulicke & Soffa Industries, Inc. launched two next-generation wire bonders just after SEMICON China opened for public viewing. Representatives from the Chinese government and from SEMICON China gave welcoming speeches, as did Christian Rheault, senior VP equipment segment of K&S.
03/18/2008 Mar. 18, 2008 - Taiwan's Winbond Electronics Corp. says it has finalized the spinoff of its logic IC business, to be a wholly owned subsidiary called Nuvoton Corp., finalizing efforts announced last fall to refocus on the company's main memory biz.
03/18/2008 Mar. 18, 2008 - The market for transparent semiconductors used in display, photovoltaics, and lighting markets will surge to ~$9.4B by 2015, according to a study from analysis firm NanoMarkets. And a key element in the devices, indium tin oxide (ITO), will continue to be in heavy demand despite surging prices and other limitations.
03/18/2008 Whether the acronym stands for micro via package or most valuable package, it looks like Shellcase MVP, introduced yesterday by Tessera Technologies, will answer to both. This recent addition to the SHELLCASE family is reportedly one of the industry's first applications of through silicon via (TSV) technologies and supports 3D die-stacking of the image sensor with other ICs.
03/18/2008 Mar. 18, 2008 - The silicon MEMS microphone sector grew 12.4% in 2007 to 238M units, well off the pace of the prior two years (2005-2006) where installations doubled to account for 20% of mobile phones manufactured, due to a drop in cell phone growth and converged devices, according to a new report from The Information Network.
03/18/2008 Mar. 18, 2008 - Despite a late-year slowdown among industry and US economic uncertainty, 2007 turned out to be a decent year for major IC and related equipment suppliers, with just a few shufflings in the rankings reflecting marketshare gains and losses, according to new data from VLSI Research.
03/18/2008 ; Intel Corp. has named the 13 winners of the company's most prestigious award for suppliers: the Supplier Continuous Quality Improvement (SCQI) award. The honor, bestowed for outstanding commitment to quality and performance excellence in 2007, recognizes companies that provided products and services deemed essential to Intel's business success.
03/18/2008 Mar. 18, 2008 - Regional news reports suggest that Japan's Elpida Memory is working with China's Hejian Technology to build a $2B 300mm/30,000WPM capacity DRAM fab, with half of the funds to be raised by the Suzhou government, much like a similar fab proposal earlier this year with SMIC.
03/18/2008 Mar. 18, 2008 - Elpida Memory and Taiwan's United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) are expanding their partnership to target Japanese foundry customers, combining Elpida's 300mm fab capacity with UMC's IP and logic technologies. The deal gives UMC inroads into Japanese foundry customers, while Elpida gets to utilize excess DRAM production capacity.
03/18/2008 NaturalNano Inc., a developer of advanced nanomaterials and extended release nanotechnologies, won an award for innovation from a global Fortune 500 company for its work in extended release.
03/18/2008 ; After being appointed CEO of Alchimer SA, Steve Lerner immediately predicted the demise of vapor deposition processes for depositing nanoscale films in through silicon vias (TSVs) within a year. Steve Lerner is a technologist with 29 years' experience in semiconductor development and manufacturing. He founded advanced packaging and device companies Alpha Szenszor, GigSys, and CS2, and has held executive positions at Amkor, Swire, and AME.
03/18/2008 ; Dow Corning Corp., Indium Corp., and 33 other companies were named recipients of Intel Corp.'s 2007 Preferred Quality Supplier (PQS) award for outstanding performance in providing products and services deemed essential to Intel's success. The PQS award winners will be honored at a celebration in Burlingame, CA, today.
03/18/2008 March 18, 2008 -- /BUSINESS WIRE/ -- LIVERMORE, CA -- Adept Technology, Inc., the leading provider of intelligent automation software for motion and vision-guided robotics systems and services, announces that its automation software, robotics, and system products have been selected by SLS Solar Line Saxony as standard products for their automation equipment for solar cell production.
03/17/2008 The Flashstream Flash Vector programming system offers a fast flash programming of NAND and NOR flash memory at speeds as low as 2.5% over theoretical programming minimum. This speed is due to the creation of this company's proprietary co-processor technology called Vector Engine, which accelerates flash memory waveforms during the programming cycle.
03/17/2008 This company's latest versions of its assembly materials will include conductive and nonconductive adhesives for die attach and flip chip applications, heat conductive adhesives for thermal management, and dippable solder pastes for BGA packaging. Given the increasing complexity of BGA packages and the sensitivity of the polymer substrates to multiple thermal processes, the ball dippable (BD) paste series enables manufacturers to utilize SOP substrates while maintaining outstanding yields.
