07/25/2006 July 20, 2006 -- /FDA News/ -- Wayne, N.J. -- Berlex, Inc. has initiated a nationwide recall of a single lot (No. 41500A) of its intravenous X-ray contrast agent, Ultravist(r) Injection 370 mgI/mL, 125 mL, (iopromide injection) NDC 50419-246-12, EXP 01/2007, due to the presence of particulate matter in conjunction with crystallization.
07/25/2006 July 24, 2006 -- /GNN/ -- London -- According to Health Protection Agency (HPA) statistics published today, MRSA bacteraemia fell to the lowest winter total since mandatory recording began in 2001, representing 11.1% decrease on winter 03/04.
07/25/2006 July 25, 2006 -- /MEDICAL INDUSTRY E-MAIL NEWS SERVICE(TM)/ -- COSTA MESA CA -- Yesterday, Monday July 24, the FDA disclosed details of its ongoing efforts to improve the composition of its important advisory committees of experts.
07/25/2006 July 25, 2006 - Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. said it has qualified its 65nm low-power process technology, to expand its contract foundry offerings from its S1 300mm logic fab line in Giheung, Korea.
07/25/2006 July 25, 2006 - Freescale Semiconductor says it has developed a new "redistributed chip packaging" technology that could replace ball grid array (BGA) and flip-chip for packaging and assembly, and claims to have already fabricated a device targeting use in mobile phones.
07/25/2006 FEI Co. of Hillsboro, Ore., announced on Monday that Don Kania has been named president, chief executive officer and a board member. He is expected to start at FEI Co., which makes tools for nanoscale characterization and research, in mid August. The appointment marks the end of a search that began with the stepping down of previous CEO Vahe Sarkissian, who left FEI in April.
07/25/2006 FEI Co. of Hillsboro, Ore., announced on Monday that Don Kania has been named president, chief executive officer and a board member of the company. Kania was the president and COO of Veeco Instruments Inc.
07/25/2006 Veeco Instruments Inc. announced that it received an order during the second quarter of 2006 for its new NEXUS Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) Multi-Target Sensor tool from a leading manufacturer of thin film magnetic heads. The system is used to deposit high-quality, extremely uniform, thin film multi-layer stacks and will be used by the customer to manufacture high areal density Tunneling Magneto-Resistive heads.
07/24/2006 July 24, 2006 - FEI Co. has hired Don Kania, president and CEO of Veeco Instruments Inc., as its new president and CEO, replacing interim CEO Ray Link, who took over when Vahe Sarkissian stepped down in April.
07/24/2006 July 24, 2006 - Power.org, an organization promoting the Power Architecture technology, has unveiled a new list of initiatives to accelerate development of power-efficient devices. The efforts include a new merged instruction set architecture and platform architecture specification, as well as a more unified branding strategy.
07/24/2006 July 24, 2006 - A trio of private equity firms are jostling for position to be the new owner of Royal Philips Electronics' semiconductor division, with bids for the unit topping $10 billion (8 billion euros), more than 30% above previous valuations, according to media reports.
07/24/2006 A prototype wafer-bonding system designed for high-vacuum applications debuted at SEMICON West 2006, billed as a MEMS-centric wafer bonder. SUSS MicroTec's M-Lock, expected in production in Q'03 2006, is a load-locked system developed for the specific challenges presented by advanced MEMS devices.
07/24/2006 July 24, 2006 - Following the agreed-upon acquisition of BOC by German gas company Linde announced earlier this year, Applied Materials and Unaxis, as well as investor firm Texas Pacific Group, are positioning themselves to snap up portions of the business that may be carved out of the combined entity, according to a local newspaper report.
07/24/2006 July 24, 2006 - Touting a vision of a silicon platform with integrated microprocessor and graphics processor capabilities, AMD and ATI Technologies Inc. have agreed to a $5.4 billion cash-and-stock deal to bring the graphics chip firm under AMD's wing. With the deal, AMD gains access to one of the two big graphics processor companies (the other being Nvidia), as well as a top supplier of chipsets for both AMD and Intel.
07/24/2006 Centrotherm has combined their vacuum soldering technology with low-pressure plasma processing to produce plasma-supported reflow-solder in their VLO vacuum furnaces. The ovens are designed for ultra-clean void-less vacuum soldering for ultra-fine-pitch connections on inorganic substrates.
07/24/2006 Nano Chemical Systems Holdings Inc. announced the opening of its first branch office in Guangzhou, China. Over the next few months the company expects to open additional branch offices in three other major Chinese cities, Xian and Harbin in July, and Beijing in August. All four branch offices will report directly to the company's headquarters in the United States.
07/21/2006 July 21, 2006 - Earlier this month, Intevac Inc., Santa Clara, CA, a developer of magnetic media sputtering equipment for hard disk drives, filed a patent infringement lawsuit in US District Court in central California against Unaxis USA and Unaxis Balzers, alleging infringement of technology relating to its magnetic media sputtering equipment. Now, Unaxis is firing back, calling the move a futile attempt to block sales of its new product in the US.
07/21/2006 EV Group, which specializes in wafer bond systems, and Brewer Science Inc., a multidivisional technology company, are co-developing a solution for handling ultra-thin wafers. EV Group and Brewer Science's research for high-temperature advanced packaging processes involves temporary wafer bonding for the ultra-thin wafers.
07/21/2006 July 21, 2006 - North American-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment continue to see brisk demand for tools this year, tacking on another 5%-7% sequential growth in sales and orders, according to the latest data from SEMI.
07/21/2006 July 21, 2006 - Singapore foundry Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing said revenues were $364.8 million, up 88% in 2Q06 compared with a year ago, and up about 3% from the prior quarter, helped by "significant growth in the consumer sector." Net income totaled $12.3 million, down from $25.3 million in 1Q06 but reversing a $67.1 million loss in 2Q05.
