03/22/2007 Nanotube manufacturer Carbon Nanotechnologies Inc. (CNI), co-founded by late Nobel Laureate and nanotube pioneer Richard Smalley, has announced plans to merge with nanotube patent aggregator and product developer Unidym. The move gives Unidym control of 59 U.S. issued carbon nanotube-related patents.
03/21/2007 March 21, 2007 - Nearly one year to the day after acquiring overlay metrology firm Soluris Inc., metrology equipment supplier Nanometrics Inc. says it is closing the firm's Concord, MA facility and consolidating all of its overlay metrology production at a facility in Asia.
03/21/2007 March 21, 2007 - Frank Huang, chairman of Taiwan DRAM firm Powerchip Semiconductor Corp., is under investigation for alleged insider trading in affiliate company Veutron where he is also chairman, according to the Taiwan Economic News.
03/21/2007 March 21, 2007 - Kenici Sekiya, former president/CEO/chairman of DISCO Corp., and Arthur Zafiropoulo, chairman/CEO of Ultratech Inc., have been appointed emeritus members of the SEMI board of directors, in recognition of their service to SEMI and the semiconductor industry.
03/21/2007 March 21, 2007 - Compound semiconductor firms showed mixed fortunes in 2006, but in general ended the year with positive results, including profit margins approaching 35% for gallium arsenide (GaAs) device manufacturers, and >25% for some substrate and equipment suppliers at year's end, according to data from Strategy Analytics.
03/21/2007 March 21, 2007 - Micron Technology Inc. has officially opened its first manufacturing facility in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province in midwest China, for assembly and test of its products including memory (DRAM and NAND flash) and CMOS image sensors. Build-out of the facility, one of the largest investments in the Xi'an High Tech Zone, is expected to continue through the end of 2008, with investments topping $250 million.
03/21/2007 March 21, 2007 - Chipmaking consortium SEMATECH is kickstarting a planned revamp of its membership business model into program-level participation, by opening the doors to new members to join its 3D Interconnect program.
03/21/2007 /FDA News/ -- St. Paul, MN -- The Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) has issued an advisory for consumers to avoid eating selected lot codes of Coborn's, Cash Wise and Midwest Pride potato salad sold at stores in Minnesota and six other states due to concerns that the product may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes bacteria.
03/21/2007 March 20, 2007 -- /BUSINESS WIRE/ -- HOUSTON & DALLAS -- Air Liquide Electronics U.S. LP announces the recent commissioning of a new Chemical Mechanical Planarization (CMP) applications and development laboratory near its Dallas, Texas headquarters.
03/21/2007 Sensor Platforms' new SSP1401 six-channel interface is designed for high-volume applications demanding sensor fusion capability. The chip aims to help product designers save on cost, power consumption, and space; and it supports a wide variety of sensors.
03/20/2007 By Yuji Setta, Tatsuo Chijimatsu, Satoru Asai, Fujitsu Ltd., Tokyo, Japan
Arrays of 100nm contact holes can be printed with adequate depth of focus (DOF) through pitch using dry 193nm wavelength exposure and a special illuminator design.
Contact holes are among the most difficult IC structures to pattern. The design rule for nested holes patterns at the 65nm-node generation assumes a spacing almost the same as the wavelength used in ArF lithography.
03/20/2007 Nanotech developers are challenged to demonstrate that their solutions are reliably available in quantity for commercial applications. Small Times contributing editor Richard Gaughan reports on a consortium that welcomes input to identify milestones and plot the path for market acceptance.
03/19/2007 by M. David Levenson, Editor-in-Chief, Microlithography World
The traditional Exposure Systems and Components session on the last day of the SPIE Advanced Lithography Symposium gave vendors the opportunity to tout their latest hyper-NA immersion scanners and supporting technologies.
03/19/2007 March 19, 2007 - Intel Corp. has announced its entry into solid state drives with the Intel Z-U130 value solid-state drive that is based on NAND flash memory with industry standard USB interfaces, to be used in a wide variety of computing and embedded platforms.
Each year, experts gather at the SPIE Advanced Lithography Symposium in San Jose to report on their pursuit of Moore's Law. Every two years, a new node in the ITRS is reached, and 2007 is the year for 45nm technology production. Many presentations at SPIE showed the 45nm node in production, as scheduled, using 193 immersion lithography, while other presentations looked further ahead...
03/19/2007 March 19, 2007 - SEMI today reported that worldwide sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment totaled $40.47 billion in 2006, compared to $32.88 billion in 2005, representing a year-over-year increase of 23 percent.
In emerging markets, essential ingredients for success, besides technological expertise and innovation, are patience and long-term vision. That's one of the lessons John Goodman, SVP and chief technology and innovation officer at Entegris, stressed during a discussion at the recent SEMI New England Breakfast Forum about his company's decision to enter the alternative energy market.
Nanotube manufacturer Carbon Nanotechnologies Inc. (CNI), co-founded by late Nobel Laureate and nanotube pioneer Richard Smalley, has announced plans to merge with nanotube patent aggregator and product developer Unidym. The move gives Unidym control of 59 U.S. issued carbon nanotube-related patents.
Sensor Platforms' new SSP1401 six-channel interface is designed for high-volume applications demanding sensor fusion capability. The chip aims to help product designers save on cost, power consumption, and space; and it supports a wide variety of sensors.
Nanotech developers are challenged to demonstrate that their solutions are reliably available in quantity for commercial applications. Small Times contributing editor Richard Gaughan reports on a consortium that welcomes input to identify milestones and plot the path for market acceptance.