07/12/2006 July 12, 2006 - European research consortium IMEC has extended its research program for 193nm immersion lithography to include double-patterning techniques to address needs of leading-edge process technologies, particularly for flash memory devices. The program now runs parallel to IMEC's other lithography efforts targeting hyper-NA immersion and extreme-ultraviolet lithography (EUV).
07/12/2006 Tessera Technologies, Inc. has signed a definitive agreement to purchase Digital Optics Corporation, expecting to close the agreement by Q'03 2006. Tessera estimates the purchase, which includes all outstanding Digital Optics equity, to be worth about $59.5 million U.S. cash.
07/12/2006 July 12, 2006 - Honeywell Electronic Materials said it has increased production of high-purity titanium mill by 45% this year, to meet rising demand from the semiconductor industry for use in equipment such as physical vapor deposition (PVD) products.
07/11/2006 July 11, 2006 - Semiconductor growth has been very strong in 2006 so far, with "tremendous" demand for tools, particularly in North America, according to SEMI's Stanley Myers, discussing the group's midyear outlook for semiconductor equipment and materials during a lunch panel presentation during the first day of SEMICON West on Monday, July 10.
07/11/2006 With escalating R&D costs, economic challenges associated with lithography past the 32nm half-pitch, and increasing competition between countries and even regions within countries, industry executives have their hands full.
Among the questions explored in 14 video interviews conducted at SEMICON West are the following:
Are finishing fabs the answer to the industry's economic challenges going forward?
Are ever-larger consortia and alliances feeling growing pains, or does size drive momentum for solutions?
As the government gets more involved in basic research, will you be happy that someone from the government is there to help you?
Will high-throughput e-beam direct write lithography be ready in time for 32nm half-pitch?
Is there a solution to the raw polysilicon availability crunch?
Are universities competing "too much" with industry?
Is scheduling invention possible?
Hear what industry executives have to say about these and other issues.
07/11/2006 Ansoft Corporation announced that their circuit-simulation software for high-performance IC design — Nexxim — was accepted into the Cadence Design Systems, Inc., Connections Program. Cadence's Virtuoso Analog Design Environment already integrates other Ansoft software, including their Q3-D Extractor and TPA package analysis tools.
07/11/2006 July 11, 2006 - ASM America, a subsidiary of ASM International NV, and CEA-Leti are forming a joint development research program (JDP) to develop sub-45nm epitaxy and epitaxy pre-clean technologies, with the goal of finding alternative processing schemes for new front-end-of-line CMOS processing technologies.
07/11/2006 July 11, 2006 - Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing and Singapore's Institute of Microelectronics, part of Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), have agreed to collaboration on research to optimize a range of fine-pitch packaging technologies for copper metallization and low-k dielectric silicon processes at 65nm and below.
07/11/2006 In what should be the last roundup of water-based 193nm immersion lithography systems, two of the big lithography tool vendors are coming out with their latest tools targeting 45nm (logic) and 32nm (memory) semiconductor manufacturing. Nikon's NSR-S610C ArF immersion scanner (1.30NA) is scheduled for deliveries by year's end, while ASML's Twinscan XT:1900i with 1.35NA optics, is being prepped for deliveries sometime in mid-2007.
07/11/2006 July 10, 2006 -- /BUSINESS WIRE/ -- ROUND ROCK, Texas -- Toppan Photomasks, Inc. today announced plans to expand its Shanghai facility, adding capacity to produce photomasks used to manufacture semiconductor devices with 180nm design rules, and additional lithography and inspection capacity for 250nm-and-above products.
07/11/2006 July 11, 2006 -- /EV GROUP/ -- EV Group (EVG) who this year celebrates "25 years ahead" in the MEMS and semiconductor industry and with more than 15 years high volume manufacturing experience, once again stays "ahead" by announcing availability of the new online shopping platform.
07/11/2006 An infusion of new fresh investments from chipmakers, particularly memory firms, has caused Gartner Inc. to hike its outlook for capital spending in 2006 -- but better growth this year will come at a steep price for the near future of the equipment industry.
07/11/2006 Tessera Technologies Inc., a provider of miniaturization technologies for the electronics industry, unveiled Shellcase CF, a wafer-level technology for optical components integrated into electronic products such as miniaturized cameras in camera phones, digital still cameras and video camcorders.
07/11/2006 Freescale Semiconductor has broken away from the pack in the race to commercialize magnetoresistive random access memory, or MRAM. The Austin, Texas-based company announced on Monday that it is in volume production of the world's first commercially available MRAM chip. The chip is intended to combine at least three qualities that previously had been unavailable together.
07/10/2006 By Bob Haavind, Editorial Director, Solid State Technology
Tough challenges facing process tool vendors as the industry moves toward sub-45nm chip features will require imaginative solutions. An analysis relating important application trends to process tool requirements was presented by Masayuki Tomoyasu, director of development and planning for Tokyo Electron Ltd. (TEL), who then proposed a wide range of potential solutions for toolmakers.
07/10/2006 July 10, 2006 - ATMI Inc., Danbury, CT, and Enthone Inc., a division of Cookson Group PLC, have introduced a new copper electrochemical deposition process for 45nm process technologies and below, developed for Novellus Systems Inc.'s Sabre tool.
