01/03/2007 In what may become an increasingly familiar byproduct of nanotech commercialization, a joint venture involving chemical giant DuPont has sued a supplier of a nanotech product used in semiconductor manufacture over a patent license.
01/02/2007 Fujitsu Microelectronics America Inc., together with Cryptolex Trust Systems Inc. and Biometric Solutions LLC, integrated the MBF200 single-touch sensor IC into Cryptolex's Mobio handheld biometric security device.
01/02/2007 The IX-70 ChromAblate on-target inspection and short-deletion system is said to deliver high precision and power in a small footprint. The laser-based materials-processing system has a compact benchtop configuration.
01/02/2007 Designed for cost-efficient performance and high-volume applications, the Nano Silver 7000-95 powder suits radio frequency identification (RFID), flexible displays, and printed flexible circuits.
01/02/2007 The T5761/T5761ES, for NAND flash memory wafer- and package-level test, was created to address efficiency and cost issues with testing NAND components in consumer devices, such as digital cameras.
01/02/2007 Following is a preview of the advanced packaging industry on display at IPC Printed Circuits/APEX/Designers Summit 2007, February 20 – 22, in Los Angeles. Look for more APEX previews leading up to the show in the newsletter and the January/February issue of Advanced Packaging.
01/02/2007 Aetrium Inc., test equipment supplier for the semiconductor industry, divested product lines manufactured at its Dallas, TX, facility, including burn-in board loaders and turret-based test handlers. The intellectual property (IP), inventory, equipment, and other assets divested will transfer to privately held WEB Technology, Inc., a group formed with members of the Dallas business. Aetrium announced that it will focus on reliability-test equipment.
01/02/2007 While 2007 will be a modest "peak year" for the semiconductor industry historically, global revenue should avoid damaging contractions in this growth cycle, according to a report released by iSuppli. The forecasting firm predicts double-digit growth tempered by changing business dynamics to about 10.6%, below previous peak years of 30 or 40% growth.
01/02/2007 The Taiwan Cabinet approved legislation to allow domestic chipmakers to produce advanced electronic components in mainland China, although concerns for intellectual property (IP) protection were raised.
01/02/2007 The selection committee of Cambridge Who's Who, a database of executives and other professionals, awarded Carl Freidhoff Professional of the Year in aerospace electronics. Freidhoff — fellow engineer; modeling, simulation, and analysis at Northrop Grumman Corporation — co-developed mass spectrography on a chip, such as MEMS-based pumps with piezoelectric actuators.
01/02/2007 A key problem looming for semiconductor manufacturing at the 45nm node and beyond is gate leakage, yet there's no high-k/metal gate solution ready to tackle it in a manufacturing environment. However, Mears Technologies recently announced what it believes to be a solution -- using band engineering to re-engineer the physical properties of silicon.
01/02/2007 Analysts surveyed by WaferNEWS generally reviewed 2006 as a decent year for the semiconductor industry, if you take away a "bloodbath" in microprocessors and a surprising weakness in ASPs. The stage is set for growth in 2007 about at or even slightly better than this year's pace, followed by what most industry watchers think will be the next cyclical peak in 2008, and a slowdown in growth in 2009.
01/02/2007 The ITRS plots a route to 45nm half-pitch through water immersion lithography for critical levels, but ASML is giving its customers an alternative by request -- one that employs familiar dry DUV exposure and the double pattern method being considered for 32nm.
01/02/2007 PI (Physik Instrumente) L.P., an Auburn, Mass., manufacturer of nanopositioning and precision motion-control equipment for life science, photonics and semiconductor applications, announced it is offering a series of high-speed microscopy objective scanner systems for 3-D microscopy applications.
01/02/2007 January 2, 2007 - Conflicting reports suggest that Taiwan's Vanguard International Semiconductor Co. is about to buy Powerchip's only 200mm wafer fab to add badly needed foundry capacity, although another report says the companies are still weighing their options.
01/02/2007 Researchers at Purdue University have used a new technique to rapidly detect and precisely identify bacteria, including dangerous E. coli, without time-consuming treatments usually required.
01/01/2007 In the semiconductor industry, ultrapure water is used for cleaning and etching of wafers. Wafer rinsing, in particular, is responsible for the largest consumption of ultrapure water in the wafer fab.
01/01/2007 A leading industrial standards-writing organization since 1953, IEST has established seven tracks of Recommended Practices (RP) in the Standards and Practices (S&P) portion of the Contamination Control (CC) program, including the most recent program in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology.
01/01/2007 The CleanRooms Webcast, USP 797-Facts and Fallacies, which originally aired on October 18, 2006, focused on USP 797 and raised a number of questions-so many, in fact, that several went unanswered due to time constraints.
