09/22/2005 September 22, 2005 - Apple's new iPod nano music player includes some "surprising" choices in its semiconductor components, and its heavy use of NAND flash will "radically change the market dynamics of both thememory market and the MP3 player," according to iSuppli Corp.
09/22/2005 September 22, 2005 - An international research team led by Shuji Nakamura, inventor of the blue LED, has developed gallium nitride thin films with a new type of crystal structure that opens the door to brighter light sources, said the Nikkei English News. Nakamura, who is based at the U. of California at Santa Barbara, held a news conference in Tokyo to reveal the development.
09/22/2005 September 22, 2005 - Nanometrics Inc. today announced it has agreed to sell its flat panel display (FPD) business unit to Toho Technology Corp. of Nagoya, Japan. Under the conditions of the sale, Nanometrics' metrology technology will be licensed to Toho exclusively for use in the FPD market. The transaction is expected to close by year's end.
09/21/2005 London, England — Lead-free wafer bumping and electronic packaging are emerging as an effective means of creating better performance semiconductor devices and gaining a competitive edge in a crowded market, furthered by growing environmental concerns from authorities such as the RoHS Directive. End-user demand for low-cost products, fuelled by the influx of Southeast Asian companies, is also prompting European participants to up the ante in innovation.
09/21/2005 September 21, 2005 - Hitachi Ltd. has announced that it has developed technology that promises to significantly increase the data storage capacity of MRAM (magnetoresistive random access memory) devices, according to the Nikkei English News.
09/21/2005 September 21, 2005 - North American-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.12 billion in orders in August 2005 and a book-to-bill ratio of 1.05, according to SEMI's August 2005 Book-to-Bill Report. "The book-to-bill ratio is above parity for the first time in a year driven in large part by orders for test and assembly equipment," said SEMI president and CEO Stanley T. Myers.
09/21/2005 Two large nanotech-related private financings were announced on Tuesday. Molecular Imprints raised $17 million in the first closing of a Series C round. Kereos announced a $19.5 million Series B.
09/20/2005 Mountain View, Calif. — MEPTEC's next one-day technical symposium is titled "Roadmaps for the Next Generation of Semiconductor Packaging," and will be held on November 17, 2005 in San Jose, Calif. Presentations from such product/device sectors as ASIC/PLD, analog, memory, graphics, microprocessor, and FPGA will discuss their companies' future horizons in device applications, and what some of the critical technology or market roadblocks may be in reaching those goals.
09/20/2005 September 20, 2005 - ASML Holding NV today announced that electronics giant Toshiba Corp. purchased a license for its patented lithography technology that helps manufacturers increase their chip yields. Toshiba joins more than 20 chipmakers and foundries in adopting ASML's Scattering Bar Technology. Toshiba will use the technology in the production of semiconductor devices.
09/20/2005 The fact that venture funding is the bottleneck is a telling sign of how successful India has been at encouraging innovation. "In the last year we've seen six or seven new companies created," said Rahul Patwardhan, president of private equity group IndiaCo.
09/19/2005 Colorado Springs, Colo. — IC Interconnect (ICI) is now offering wafer test, laser marking, die singulation, and tape-and-reel capabilities as standard services. The equipment set gives ICI installed capacity to process approximately 2 million bumped die per week for small- to moderate-volume processing of 100 to 500 wafers/week.
09/19/2005 September 19, 2005 - Intel Corp. said it will invest $345 million for upgrades to its wafer fabs in Massachusetts and Oregon, just a month after agreeing to build a new $3 billion 300mm fab in Arizona. Under the plans, Intel will spend $190 million to add a second cleanroom to its Fab 23 in Colorado Springs, for final processing of microprocessors produced on 300mm wafers at other locations prior to final testing and packaging.
09/19/2005 (September 19, 2005) San Jose, Calif. — Integrated Device Technology, Inc. (IDT) has begun volume production of its RoHS-compliant flip chip packaged monolithic 512K × 36 (18-Mb) and 256K × 36 (9-Mb) network search engines (NSEs) with dual Network Processor Forum (NPF) Look Aside (LA-1) interfaces. This enables telecommunications equipment designers to reach line rate performance up to OC-192 and beyond, while also meeting the new environmental regulations.
09/16/2005 September 16, 2005 - Global sales of chipmaking equipment in July fell 20.0% from a year earlier to 2,798.05 million dollars, posting the sixth consecutive fall, according to data released by the Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan (SEAJ) on Wednesday, reported the Jiji Press.
