12/13/2006 SEMI put out a call for innovations for the fifth annual Technology Innovation Showcase (TIS) to be held in conjunction with SEMICON West 2007, July 17 – 19, 2007, in San Francisco. Nanotechnology, MEMS, test, assembly, packaging, and wafer processing submissions are sought by February 2, 2007.
12/13/2006 Altera Corporation and White Electronic Designs Corporation (WEDC) partnered to produce military- and aerospace-grade packages for FPGAs in defense applications.
12/13/2006 A non-conductive paste (NCP) underfill and encapsulant, Hysol FP5110 from Henkel adheres flip chip image sensor modules to 2- and 3-layer flexible printed circuits. Image sensors are a component in nearly half of mobile phones in production, according to Robert Chu, global product manager for CSP underfills.
12/12/2006 NEC Electronics, Elpida Memory, and Oki Electric developed packaging technology with through-silicon vias (TSVs) to incorporate eight memory chips and one controller chip into a form factor suitable for cell phones and other portable, handheld applications.
12/12/2006 Debra Vogler, senior technical editor of Advanced Packaging and Solid State Technology Magazines, will speak at a panel discussion, "Industry Journalism in the Internet Age: Can It Survive?," on December 20 at the Northern California Business Marketing Association (NorCal BMA) lunch program.
12/11/2006 At the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), IMEC demonstrated thinned bulk-silicon die containing through-silicon vias (TSVs) stacked and interconnected by direct copper-to-copper thermo-compression bonding.
12/11/2006 The U.S. Congress passed an extension to the R&D tax credit in the closing days of a "lame duck" session. Members of the House and Senate approved extending the credit, which expired at the close of 2005, but did not make the credit permanent. Congress will review related legislation when the new session convenes in 2007.
12/11/2006 WiSpry Inc., an Irvine, Calif., company developing RF MEMS tunable components and devices for the wireless industry, announced the appointment of Scott Feltenberg and Collin Baker to its executive team. Feltenberg joins WiSpry as vice president of finance and Baker joins WiSpry as vice president of customer engineering.
12/11/2006 Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) promoted Mario Rivas to executive vice president of the computing products group (CPG), a position filled in interim by president and COO Dirk Meyer. Rivas previously headed the office of strategy management at the company.
12/11/2006 Discera Inc., a San Jose, Calif.-based company developing MEMS resonator technology and provider of MEMS-based timing solutions, announced a pair of partnerships to distribute Discera's MEMS resonator-based timing products.
12/11/2006 Larry Bock has resigned as executive chairman of the board of directors of Palo Alto, Calif.-based Nanosys Inc., a nanotechnology platform and product development company working in a variety of industries, including developing military-related applications using nanomaterials for use in biosensors, solar cells and memory devices.
12/11/2006 Camtek Ltd. introduced the Pegasus 200S automated optical inspection (AOI) system to evaluate finished high-density interconnect substrates (HDI-S). The model is expected to automate traditionally manual quality-assurance inspection, said Yankee Yavor, vice president of PCB and HDI-S inspection products.
12/08/2006 STI Electronics, Inc. (STI), was awarded a patent for its imbedded component/die technology (IC/DT), which involves the use of integrated circuit (IC) imbedded within a laminate substrate disposed on a thermally conductive core, providing a thermal sink. STI applied for the patent on May 23, 2003; it was awarded on October 3, 2006.
12/08/2006 Dec. 8, 2006 -- ASTM International, an open forum for the development of international standards, announced its first nanotech related standard. The standard was developed by a committee, E56, which was formed in 2005.
12/08/2006 phoenix|x-ray Systems and Services, Inc., based in Wunstorf, Germany, opened a service center in St. Petersburg and increased staff to boost U.S. market presence. The company also redesigned its Website with updated information and a reportedly clearer structure.
12/07/2006 Pac Tech GmbH announced the purchase of a 53,512 sq. foot wafer bumping facility on Panang Island, Malaysia. The new company, Pac Tech Asia, will provide equipment and services for wafer bumping and wafer level packaging.
12/07/2006 BIOIDENT Technologies Inc., a Menlo Park, Calif., company developing printed opto-electronic solutions for life sciences, announced a lab-on-a-chip prototype with a fully integrated opto-electronic readout system.
12/06/2006 SiTime Corp., a Sunnyvale, Calif., start-up commercializing silicon MEMS resonators, announced the appointment of Regina Rekhtman as vice president of operations.
12/06/2006 SmalTec International LLC, a Naperville, Ill., microtechnology solutions provider, announced the launch of its most advanced micro-EDM / nano-grinding equipment.
Dec. 8, 2006 -- ASTM International, an open forum for the development of international standards, announced its first nanotech related standard. The standard was developed by a committee, E56, which was formed in 2005.