06/25/2007 June 25, 2007 - Hynix Semiconductor reportedly will migrate its 60nm NAND flash to 57nm production at its 200mm fabs in 3Q07 in a move to cut costs by around 20%, as rivals Samsung and Toshiba continue to press on to 56-50nm, according to a Digitimes report citing "downstream customers."
06/25/2007 June 25, 2007 - BASF and IBM have signed a joint development agreement for electronic materials to be used in 32nm IC manufacturing by 2010, leveraging IBM's semiconductor process development and BASF's expertise in chemicals and nanotechnology.
06/25/2007 Advanced Interconnect Technologies (AIT) signed a multi-year assembly service agreement with Elmos Semiconductor of Dortmund, Germany, wherein Elmos will transfer IC assembly and supporting equipment from Holland to an AIT facility in Batam, Indonesia. Elmos is a global mixed-signal ASIC provider primarily serving automotive applications.
06/25/2007 Flash-memory supplier Spansion recognized Wentworth Laboratories, Inc., with one of 17 "World Class Supplier Achievement Awards for 2006," based on an evaluation of supplier performance in technology, quality, cost, flexibility, and service parameters. Spansion also recognized Oerlikon Assembly Equipment with a "Spotlight Award."
06/25/2007 DEK promoted David Hayes and Leon Lee to product support positions in Asia, aiding in R&D, region-specific product development, and opening a service control center in Shenzhen, China. Hayes was named product support manager; Lee will become Asia product manager.
06/25/2007 Following FEI's earlier unveiling of Phenom-Ed for education, the company has now officially launched the commercial version of its SEM that measures about the size of a tower PC and provides magnification 20 times greater than advanced optical microscopes. Yet its pricing is competitive with high-end optical systems.
06/25/2007 MFIC Corp. has announced the opening of the Microfluidics Technology Center, a state-of-the-art research and discovery facility located at MFIC headquarters in Newton, Mass. MFIC is known for fluid formulation processing equipment to produce small, uniform liquid and solid particles for the biotech, pharmaceutical, chemical, personal care, and food industries.
06/22/2007 Chipworks and Yole Développement signed an agreement to collaborate on in-depth business and technical analysis for the MEMS industry. Chipworks, which provides reverse engineering and technical analysis of semiconductors and microelectronic systems, will supplement Yole's market research and business development data.
06/22/2007 Researchers from Luna Innovations Inc. and Virginia Commonwealth University say they are the first to show that carbon nanospheres ("buckyballs") can block allergic response in human cell culture experiments and mice.
06/21/2007 June 21, 2007 - A new study by Wright Williams & Kelly Inc. and Strategic Marketing Associates sheds light on what people in the industry think will be most likely to hit production process lines in the next 2-5 years, and which ones may take longer than expected to be adopted into manufacturing lines, if ever.
06/21/2007 MagnaChip Semiconductor Ltd. has applied circuit under pad (CUP) technology to its foundry business processes for image sensor, mixed-signal, and digital multimedia components. CUP places the I/O circuit on the unused area of a chip, under the pad, and can reduce semiconductor sizes without reducing I/O count.
06/21/2007 nCoat has agreed to acquire all capital stock of Metallic Ceramic Coatings Inc. (MCCI), doing business under the brand JET-HOT Coatings. nCoat plans to integrate nano-formulated coatings into the JET-HOT product mix; the combined businesses should achieve two times nCoat's current revenue.
06/21/2007 Recognizing that packaging and manufacturing are among the most crucial challenges facing MEMS engineers, ASM International has announced its MEMS Materials Database: Packaging Module to facilitate materials selection for MEMS packages.
06/20/2007 May 30, 2007 -- TAMPA, FL -- Enhanced credibility, peer respect and recognition, greater opportunities for professional advancement, and a competitive edge when job seeking are some of the benefits that pharmaceutical manufacturing professionals can gain with certification as a Certified Pharmaceutical Industry Professional SM (CPIPSM) made available through the ISPE Professional Certification Commission (ISPE-PCC).
06/20/2007 May 25, 2007 -- /FDA Digest/ -- SAN LEANDRO, CA -- nSpired Natural Foods of San Leandro, CA, is voluntarily recalling all MaraNatha Sesame Tahini in 16-oz sizes with a Use By Date of 04/11/08 and earlier, and 15-lb and 32-lb sizes with an expiration date of 01/05/08 (lot 07130) and earlier, because it has the potential to be contaminated with salmonella.
06/20/2007 May 25, 2007 -- /FDA News/ -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is alerting health care professionals and their patients who wear soft contact lenses about a voluntary recall of Complete MoisturePlus Multi Purpose Solution manufactured by Advanced Medical Optics of Santa Ana, CA.
06/20/2007 May 30, 2007 -- /PRNewswire/ -- PLYMOUTH, MI -- The Fraunhofer USA Center for Molecular Biotechnology was awarded a $2.6 million contract from the U.S. Department of Defense through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to further develop and validate a novel system for accelerated manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals.
Following FEI's earlier unveiling of Phenom-Ed for education, the company has now officially launched the commercial version of its SEM that measures about the size of a tower PC and provides magnification 20 times greater than advanced optical microscopes. Yet its pricing is competitive with high-end optical systems.