04/18/2006 "Assembly and packaging are limiting factors in both cost and performance for electronic systems," states the latest version of the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS), published in December 2005. By Julia Goldstein, Ph.D., contributing editor
04/18/2006 Konarka Technologies Inc., a developer of power plastic that converts light to energy, announced that Christoph Brabec has been appointed as the company's chief technology officer. Previously Konarka's director of polymer photovoltaics, Brabec will guide scientific research efforts as CTO, while working with the company's technology developments to develop relevant applications.
04/17/2006 Preliminary C4NP manufacturing and reliability test results of both tin-lead and lead-free solders verify that there are no inherent failure mechanisms attributable to the C4NP process, according to a report presented by IBM and SUSS MicroTec at the IMAPS International Conference and Exhibition on Device Packaging, held March 21, 2006, in Scottsdale, AZ. By George Riley, Ph.D., contributing editor
04/17/2006 Chandler, AZ — Many IC design projects are frequently struggling with unexpected delays to their production plan. Intense time-to-market pressures demand an environment that prescribes improvement to both the predictability and length of design timelines. Here are 10 vital tips as teams pursue their quest to improve IC design execution. By Jeff Jorvig, Jorvig Consulting
04/17/2006 The AKU2000 surface-mountable complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) microphone integrates an acoustic transducer, output amplifier, and 4th-order sigma-delta modulator in a single chip.
04/17/2006 The SS-BGA324J-02-01 socket allows 1.0-mm-pitch, 23-mm-body, 22 × 22-array ICs to be used in socket and operate in high-bandwidth applications. The 10-GHz bandwidth sockets support dense-pitch BGA devices in a 500,000-actuations socket. Designed to dissipate up to 7 W without extra heatsinking, SS-BGA324J-02-01 handles up to 60 W with a custom heatsink.
04/17/2006 Nano Spray technology achieves conformal coating of extreme surface topographies, demonstrating conformal coatings of vertical via walls 300-µm deep and 100-µm in diameter. This enables further lithography steps in the bottom of the via to create through-wafer interconnects.
04/17/2006 April 17, 2006 - Startup Key ASIC, a Santa Clara, CA-based fabless provider of ASIC and system-on-chip (SoC) design-for-manufacturing services, has officially launched with a menu of SoC platforms for various consumer and communications applications.
04/14/2006 April 14, 2006 - South Korean semiconductor-equipment vendor Integrated Process Systems Ltd. (IPS) has filed a lawsuit against Aviza Technology Inc., Scotts Valley, CA alleging that Aviza used confidential information to develop its single-wafer atomic-layer deposition (ALD) system.
04/14/2006 Melville, NY, and Minneapolis, MN — Arrow Electronics' North American Components (NAC) group and Logic Product Development (Logic) have entered into a distribution agreement, boosting Arrow's capability to provide low-cost development platforms and product-ready embedded computing solutions based on AMD Geode, Freescale ColdFire, Intel XScale, Sharp ARM, and Renesas SuperH microprocessors.
04/14/2006 "Magic Nano," a protective glass and bathroom sealant that was recalled March 28 in Germany after causing sometimes severe breathing problems in consumers, may not be much of a nano product after all. At least the "nano liquid" used in the sealant does not contain nanoparticles, said Ralf Juergens, a scientist at nanopool GmbH, the company that produces the liquid for the product's distributor, Kleinmann GmbH.
04/13/2006 ; As part of a plan to strengthen its position in the Asia-Pacific region, Panasonic Semiconductor Asia Ltd. (PSCA) announced it will invest $10 million SGD ($6.2 million USD) in manpower development at the Panasonic Semiconductor Development Center (PSDA) in Singapore over the next five years.
04/13/2006 April 13, 2006 - ChipMOS Technologies Inc., Oracle Corp., and Taiwan's Institute for Information Industry are partnering to develop an information system for semiconductor supply chains based on radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology.
04/13/2006 April 13, 2006 - Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. said it has developed a wafer-level processed stack package (WSP) of high-density memory chips using "through silicon via" interconnections, resulting in a 15% smaller and 30% thinner device than an equivalent wire-bonded multichip package.
04/13/2006 April 13, 2006 - Cadence Design Systems Inc., San Jose, CA, and Chinese foundry Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) have jointly developed an analog mixed-signal (AMS) reference flow, based on SMIC's 0.18-micron process technology.
