04/20/2007 April 20, 2007 - TSMC has formed an exploratory R&D team to evaluate feasibility of 450mm wafer production and determine equipment needs and possible yield rates, though the company stresses that the effort is only to assess its options, according to the Taiwan Economic News.
04/20/2007 Nan Ya PCB Corporation added an additional line to its flip chip substrate production capacity, increasing output to 30 million units monthly. The line will produce seven million units, reports Taiwan's China Economic News Service (CENS).
04/20/2007 Innovative Micro Technology (IMT) began offering getter deposition services of wafer-level packaging (WLP) of MEMS devices, and other components requiring a hard vacuum. In testing, IMT reportedly demonstrated vacuum levels below 10 mTorr for inorganic devices — equal to or better than industry standard.
04/20/2007 Russian president Vladimir Putin is ready to back nanotechnology research "on a grand scale" -- but that he wants results implemented effectively. Nanotechnology will lay the groundwork for new weapon systems, both offensive and defensive, he said.
04/20/2007 The Civil Society-Labor Coalition has rejected what it referred to as the "fundamentally flawed DuPont-Environmental Defense proposed framework" for voluntary risk assessment of nanotechnology. Small Times' Sarah Fister Gale reports.
04/20/2007 North America-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers posted $1.42B in orders and billings in March, generating an even book-to-bill of 1.00, according to SEMI's monthly book-to-bill report. Bookings improved slightly while billings remained at February levels. The book-to-bill had dropped slightly below parity in February at 0.98.
04/20/2007 April 20, 2007 - Acknowledging "considerable downside risk" in the semiconductor market due to memory oversupplies and pricing declines, Gartner Dataquest has lowered its forecast for chip tool sales for the next two years.
04/19/2007 Debiotech and STMicroelectronics have announced a strategic cooperation agreement aimed at producing a miniaturized insulin-delivery pump. Enabled by microfluidic MEMS and semiconductor manufacturing technology, the Nanopump aims to broadly improve patients' lives.
04/19/2007 Gartner published a Dataquest Insight report predicting a 3% decline in sales revenues for semiconductor capital equipment in 2007. The research firm indicates that growth will begin in 2008, slow in 2009, and pick up again in 2010. Consumer spending, investments, and inventory control will dictate the semiconductor markets.
04/19/2007 GenISys GmbH, a Munich, Germany-based provider of software for optimization of microstructure fabrication processes, has opened a new office in Tokyo, Japan.
04/19/2007 Atomic force microscope manufacturer Asylum Research has purchased a majority interest of Atomic Force F&E GmbH, Asylum's European distributor since 1999.
04/19/2007 April 19, 2007 - NOR flash memory maker Spansion Inc. says it will slash up to $100 million in costs and pull back capex everywhere but its SP1 300mm facility, after plummeting ASPs caused the firm to slip to a $75.5 million that was more than twice what Wall Street expected.
04/19/2007 Yole Développement compiled a list of major MEMS manufacturers globally, market drivers, and industry shifts in "Analysis: Top 30 MEMS Manufacturers." The top 30 represent 88% of the total MEMS industry, with $5.2B in 2006 sales. Minimum sales in the top ranking grew to $26 million, up from $15 million in 2005. Yole noted that military MEMS business is difficult to track, and may represent a larger portion of the industry than predicted.
04/18/2007 April 18, 2007 - Toko Inc. is shifting to 0.35-micron process technology for driver chips used in displays to adjust brightness of LEDs, investing 200-300 million yen (US $1.7-$2.5 million) to upgrade etching equipment from 0.64-micron design rules, according to the Nikkei Business Daily.
04/18/2007 April 18, 2007 - Infineon Technologies AG plans to invest 200 million euro (about US $271.0 million) in its R&D operations in Singapore, and add about 150 employees (a 37% increase, to 500 R&D workers) over the next three years, to strengthen development of various semiconductor and networking technologies.
04/18/2007 AP&C Advanced Powders and Coatings, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Raymor Industries Inc., has commenced operations on its second metallic powder production unit. As a result, AP&C has received new orders for the third and fourth quarter of 2007 totalling $1,230,000 for the supply of its spherical titanium (CP Ti) powders from a major US orthopedic implant company.
04/18/2007 The IEEE components, packaging, and manufacturing technology (CPMT) society — an international forum for scientists and engineers in microsystems packaging design and manufacture R&D and development — named professor Herbert Reichl, director of Fraunhofer IZM, recipient of its electronics manufacturing technology award.
04/18/2007 Texas Instruments is still the number one MEMS company worldwide, with record revenue of $905 million in 2006, according to German research firm WTC. WTC has updated its MEMS market data with rankings of the top 30 MEMS developers and the top 10 MEMS foundry service providers.
04/18/2007 mPhase Technologies Inc. is creating a new 100% wholly owned subsidiary, AlwaysReady Inc. With this launch, mPhase hopes to deliver to shareholders the value of its nanotechnology and MEMS-based products.
04/18/2007 Tronics Microsystems SA expanded its characterization, assembly, packaging, and testing capabilities with additional space and tools. The expansion will support design-to-manufacturing services, and support its MEMS device supply chain.
