05/04/2007 Mentor Graphics Corporation named Maria M. Pope vice president and chief financial officer (CFO), responsible for treasury, tax, accounting, internal audit, corporate development, and investor relationships. She also will manage facilities and purchasing.
05/04/2007 NaturalNano, Inc., a materials science company, has entered into a joint development agreement (JDA) with Cascade Engineering, a developer and manufacturer of plastics products. This is the second JDA that NaturalNano has announced in the second quarter of 2007.
05/04/2007 In the first manufacturing application of self-assembling nanotechnology, IBM has created a vacuum around nanowires. The patented process provides what IBM calls "the equivalent of two generations of Moore's Law wiring performance improvements in a single step, using conventional manufacturing techniques."
05/03/2007 By Meredith Courtemanche, assistant editor
IMAPS Device Packaging in Scottsdale, AZ, brought me from a below-freezing New England blizzard to the hot, sunny Arizona desert alongside dedicated members of the advanced packaging industry. Lead-free, flip chips, MEMS, and every variety of stacked package seemed to be the main topics around the tradeshow floor.
05/03/2007 May 3, 2007 - To match a flurry of local activity with new fab activity and upgrades, Singapore's Economic Development Board (EDB) says it is investing about $5.2 million for a program to prepare up to 300 undergraduate engineers each year for engineering jobs within the nation's wafer fabs.
05/03/2007 May 3, 2007 - Some equipment suppliers to Taiwanese makers of thin-film transistor liquid-crystal displays (TFT-LCD) are looking to find even greener pastures in the latest hot market: solar cell manufacturing, notes the Taiwan Economic News.
05/03/2007 Hewlett-Packard has licensed its nanoimprint lithography process to Nanolithosolutions, which hopes to enable manufacture of more powerful semiconductors inexpensively. This is the first deal related to the nanotechnology work done at HP's Quantum Science Research group over the past 12 years.
05/03/2007 FEI Company, provider of instruments for nanoscale imaging, analysis and prototyping, reported increases in revenue, earnings and cash for Q1 2007. Net sales and earnings were the highest for any quarter in the company's history, and quarterly bookings were the second-highest and the largest first-quarter total ever.
05/03/2007 May 3, 2007 - IBM Corp. is touting a two-generation performance improvement with what it claims is a new technique that self-assembles vacuum "airgaps" to insulate wiring connecting transistors.
05/03/2007 The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Maryland says its newly established Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology (CNST) is accepting proposals for nanotechnology related research projects.
05/02/2007 May 2, 2007 - Spansion Inc. has secured a 48.4 billion yen (US ~$411 million) 45-month term loan -- one of the largest semiconductor financings in the history of Japanese financial markets -- to restructure its operating lease obligations and equip its SP1 300mm fab in Aizuwakamatsu, Japan, for 65nm flash memory production.
05/02/2007 RVSI Inspection LLC appointed QES, headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to represent its Lead Scanner and Wafer Scanner product lines in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand. QES serves front- and back-end markets.
05/02/2007 May 2, 2007 - Atmel Corp. is continuing to carve out manufacturing operations with the latest sale of its Irving, TX facility to Maxim Integrated Products Inc. for $38 million in cash.
05/02/2007 SUSS MicroTec's new DSM200 is an automated metrology system for double-sided (front-to-back) alignment and exposure applications. The tool serves applications in the manufacture of MEMS devices, power semiconductors, and optoelectronics.
05/02/2007 The Australian government has released what the Australian Nano Business Forum (ANBF) calls a "$1.4 billion industry statement," which recognizes the imperative of Australian industry to adopt nanotechnologies.
05/02/2007 Earth Search Sciences, Inc. has received a patent on its hyperspectral remote sensing instrument, the OmniProbe. Thanks to MEMS and nanotechnology, the OmniProbe promises dramatic advantages over its leading-edge predecessor.
05/01/2007 The KADETT semi-automatic device bonder, designed for R&D labs, university research, and pre-production environments, performs high-accuracy placement and bonding processes for advanced packaging, MEMS, and other assembly tasks.
05/01/2007 The MT9928 semiconductor test handler system, with up to eight parallel test sites, supports 28,000 units-per-hour throughput and fast changeover between various package types. It reportedly offers temperature control and test accuracy.
05/01/2007 For testing smaller-sized, smaller-density DRAM devices (512 Mb and below), the PH150XP wafer probe card incorporates a MicroSpring contact design that accommodates more than 25,000 contacts. It suits testing of consumer and mobile DRAM packages with high pin counts.
05/01/2007 It's hard to feel upbeat about the future of mainstream semiconductor manufacturing after attending last week's SEMI Strategic Business Conference in Napa, CA, where presentations detailed the end of the good times. With the IC business now mature and just another part of the global electronics industry supporting future value-added technologies, the simplified message may well be this: 'Keep up the good work, and maybe you might even get paid some day.'
In the first manufacturing application of self-assembling nanotechnology, IBM has created a vacuum around nanowires. The patented process provides what IBM calls "the equivalent of two generations of Moore's Law wiring performance improvements in a single step, using conventional manufacturing techniques."
SUSS MicroTec's new DSM200 is an automated metrology system for double-sided (front-to-back) alignment and exposure applications. The tool serves applications in the manufacture of MEMS devices, power semiconductors, and optoelectronics.
Earth Search Sciences, Inc. has received a patent on its hyperspectral remote sensing instrument, the OmniProbe. Thanks to MEMS and nanotechnology, the OmniProbe promises dramatic advantages over its leading-edge predecessor.