04/13/2007 FormFactor, Inc. has released its PH150XP wafer probe card, a new product in the company's line of DRAM wafer testing products. The PH150XP probe card promises several yield and throughput enhancements to enable DRAM manufacturers to achieve additional reductions in their overall cost of test.
04/12/2007 Antares Advanced Test Technologies and Gryphics, Inc., wholly owned subsidiary of Cascade Microtech, Inc., partnered for sales, distribution, and service on Gryphics' LQFN test-socket product line. Antares will rename the sockets "Kalypso," and provide global distribution and service.
04/12/2007 A 100-mm sapphire wafer-dicing capability, developed on J.P. Sercel Associates' IX-200 Chromadice DPSS UV laser wafer-singulation system, reportedly increases LED yields by processing larger sapphire wafers than prior methods.
04/12/2007 LITMUS Defense, LLC has entered into a formal agreement with the U.S. Naval Air Warfare Center, Weapons Division (NAWCWD), for the research and development of carbon nanostructures in advanced rocket motors and warheads.
04/12/2007 Tronics Microsystems SA has expanded MEMS characterization, assembly, packaging, and testing capabilities at its Crolles, France headquarters. The additional space and new tools strengthen the company's design-to-manufacturing services.
04/12/2007 PolyFuel has received two broad U.S. patents related to its hydrocarbon polymer membranes. Such membranes are considered critical for micro-power fuel cells, expected to supplant batteries in portable electronics. "In any new field, there are ultimately a few, benchmark patents from which much future technology springs. We believe that this is one of those situations," the company says.
04/11/2007 EoPlex Technologies has been named a "Cool Vendor" by Gartner, Inc. as part of the research company's 2007 report "Cool Vendors in Semiconductors, 2007". Gartner defines a Cool Vendor as a company that offers technologies or solutions that are innovative, impactful, and intriguing; having caught Gartner's interest or curiosity in the past six months.
04/11/2007 Bristol, England-based Metryx, Limited, a semiconductor equipment manufacturer specializing in nanotechnology mass measurement techniques, says it has hired two new directors of business development to help the company meet a growing demand for mass metrology.
04/11/2007 NEXX Systems, a provider of processing equipment for advanced wafer-level packaging applications, has named Didier Andre as Director of European Customer Operations. Andre will work closely with NEXX's distributor, TELTEC, to strengthen NEXX's position with existing customers and to establish new opportunities in Europe.
04/11/2007 Despite uncertainty about the future of the Advanced Technology Program (ATP), NIST -- which manages the program -- will hand out approximately $60 million in this year's competition. On April 13, ATP director Marc Stanley (right) will convene a series of conferences to explain criteria; the proposal deadline is May 21. Small Times' Tom Cheyney reports on the program and past winners.
04/11/2007 April 11, 2007 - A federal judge has tossed out an antitrust lawsuit filed against seven memory chipmakers, saying that the lawsuit did not precisely detail and separate out allegations of damages that occurred inside the US vs outside the US, and has given them until May 4th to refile.
04/10/2007 Tyco Electronics' M/A-COM division, which provides wireless RF, microwave, and millimeter-wave components and systems, qualified Discera, Inc., MEMS-based oscillators, MOS1, for use in telemetry transmitters. Component volumes and delivery times are still to be determined, said Venkat Bahl of Discera.
04/10/2007 The Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) electronics manufacturing tech group honored professor R. Wayne Johnson with the 2007 Total Excellence in Electronics Manufacturing (TEEM) award, in recognition of dedication and innovation in electronics manufacturing.
04/10/2007 Innovative Micro Technology (IMT) now offers getter deposition services for wafer-level packaging of MEMS and other devices requiring hard vacuum for performance. IMT says it has routinely achieved vacuum levels below 10 mTorr in production of inorganic devices.
04/10/2007 The German company Vistec Semiconductor Systems GmbH and TOOL Corporation of Tokyo, Japan, have announced the integration of Vistec's SEM-based CD measurement system LWM9000 SEM and TOOL's layout visualization platform, LAVIS. The integration makes it possible to display a measuring layout design data on LAVIS, and visually create a "recipe" quickly using simple mouse operations. The LWM9000 SEM can then read the recipes directly.
04/10/2007 New Scale Technologies SQL-3.4-cryo piezoelectric SQUIGGLE motor operates continuously from room temperature to cryogenic temperatures. It is "a unique solution for cryogenic nanopositioning," says New Scale.
04/10/2007 April 10, 2007 - Fujitsu Limited has developed and released a new large-scaled integrated (LSI) chip for in-car automotive systems, such as navigation and digital dashboards. The new system-on-chip integrates various functions on a single chip, such as ARM core, 2D and 3D graphic capabilities, in-car networking features, and support for various media interfaces.
04/10/2007 April 10, 2007 - NEC Corp. has developed a completely new kind of bioplastic composed of plant-based material and carbon fiber, which realizes heat conductivity higher than that of stainless steel, according to the Japan Electronic News. The innovative bioplastic is expected to make electronic products more environmentally sound, while solving conventional heat release issues.
04/09/2007 Tim Archer, SVP of Novellus' dielectrics business group, tells WaferNEWS how the company's latest 300mm wafer Vector PECVD tool increases system throughput >10% for all films, and up to 50% for ultra-thin films through use of a thermal soak.
04/09/2007 The advent of 193nm (ArF) lithography brought a different kind of issue: contaminated scanner optics caused by the formation of silicon-containing organic compounds which form larger molecules that condense on the optics and cause lens contamination, resulting in flare and incorrect printing. A new absorbent material used in Entegris' filter keeps a "sticky" organic in its condensable form, preventing it from rearranging and propagating through the filter and ultimately reaching the optics.
PolyFuel has received two broad U.S. patents related to its hydrocarbon polymer membranes. Such membranes are considered critical for micro-power fuel cells, expected to supplant batteries in portable electronics. "In any new field, there are ultimately a few, benchmark patents from which much future technology springs. We believe that this is one of those situations," the company says.
Despite uncertainty about the future of the Advanced Technology Program (ATP), NIST -- which manages the program -- will hand out approximately $60 million in this year's competition. On April 13, ATP director Marc Stanley (right) will convene a series of conferences to explain criteria; the proposal deadline is May 21. Small Times' Tom Cheyney reports on the program and past winners.
Innovative Micro Technology (IMT) now offers getter deposition services for wafer-level packaging of MEMS and other devices requiring hard vacuum for performance. IMT says it has routinely achieved vacuum levels below 10 mTorr in production of inorganic devices.
New Scale Technologies SQL-3.4-cryo piezoelectric SQUIGGLE motor operates continuously from room temperature to cryogenic temperatures. It is "a unique solution for cryogenic nanopositioning," says New Scale.