10/31/2008  With a global financial meltdown in full swing, and oil prices whipsawing to historic highs and back down again, will consumers be in a buying mood? Jim Handy of Objective Analysis shares his views on what to expect with the holiday market for electronics goods.

10/31/2008  October 31, 2008: Nanoscience Instruments, a US-based distributor of nanotechnology instrumentation and supplies, is the first worldwide distributor of Advanced Diamond Technologies' NaDiaProbe line of all-diamond atomic force microscopy (AFM) probes.

10/30/2008  October 30, 2008: SEMATECH and the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) at the U. at Albany will use TEL's Telius SP UD system in a 300mm 3D R&D center.

10/29/2008  Seagate Technology and Fujitsu have been biding their time the last few years with respect to solid-state storage devices (SSD). SST spoke with experts of both companies about results from their evaluation of potential market opportunities.

10/28/2008  We're in the fifth year of a major inflection point in the semiconductor market, and the most exciting and challenging time in the industry's history -- but there's still a lot of FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) that's drowning out all the vision. EDA guru Gary Smith offers several doses of reality, and lists what you'll need to do if you want to be a winner in this new challenging world.

10/28/2008  by Gail Flower, Editor-in-Chief, Advanced Packaging
IMEC remains on the forefront of research in many areas including nanotechnology, RF MEMS packaging, flip-chip, substrates, organic electronics, CMOS-based research, solar cells, and 3D stacked integrated circuits. In 3D stacked packages an area of predicted high-growth, IMEC has announced notable achievements.

10/24/2008  October 23, 2008: Melexis says its newest CMOS image sensor, the MLX75307, is specifically designed for automotive front vision applications such as advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), high-beam assist, and night vision, dramatically improving road safety by proactively alerting the driver of potential dangers.

10/22/2008  KLA-Tencor's Rangesh Raghavan discussed the architecture and capabilities of the company's new PlasmaVolt X2 system, which measures plasma chamber conditions in semiconductor wafer processing systems, including above-the-wafer effects.

10/21/2008  October 21, 2008: Wolfson Microelectronics has launched the first devices in its new family of silicon microphones due for release over the next 12 months.

10/21/2008  A litho-etch, litho-etch (LELE) approach is one of several double patterning schemes concocted to help span the gap between current single-exposure 193nm immersion litho and EUV. But LELE places extreme demands on both the productivity and the performance of the lithography tool. ASML's new Twinscan NXT platform strives to address these challenges, as described at ASML's recent Eindhoven (Netherlands) press event.

10/21/2008  Toshiba's purchase of extra capacity from flash memory JV partner SanDisk is likely a move to protect its investment given M&A overtures by market-leading Samsung, though the rumored price for the deal is a bit tough to swallow in current economic times, according to analysts.

10/16/2008  Advent Solar execs, on hand at this week's Solar Power International event in San Diego, discuss the upcoming (1Q09) launch of their first product targeting PV that utilizes advanced semiconductor technology, including epi-filled TSVs and the equivalent of wafer-level packaging, and reduces efficiency loss as well as lowers cell processing and interconnect costs.

10/14/2008  The AltaCVD chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and atomic layer deposition (ALD) tool from Altatech combines a unique vaporizer technology, chamber design, and gas/liquid panel integration. The combination of a proprietary reactor design and precursor introduction path with a pulsed liquid injection and vaporization is said to enable nanoscale control of thickness, uniformity, composition, and stoichiometry in complex materials.

10/14/2008  Qimonda's selling its stake in its memory JV with Nanya to Micron, who are already in their own JV (for now) using a different DRAM technology. It's a shakeout for all three parties, in aspect of finance, manufacturing, technology, and strategy. Here's a quick rundown of who gains what.

10/14/2008  By Fran

10/13/2008  Proven for high-volume 300mm manufacturing
By Emmet Hughlett, SUSS MicroTec, Inc.
In July 2007, IBM announced the qualification of C4NP for 200µm pitch lead-free solder bumping for shipped product. Since then, IBM has qualified 150µm pitch C4NP lead-free bumped wafers on a fully populated high-volume production line. SUSS MicroTec is completing build of additional C4NP equipment to meet ramping demand at IBM's Hopewell Junction bumping facility.

10/10/2008  The ugly economic condition still unfolding daily and globally is behind yet another chip industry downgrade, this time by iSuppli Corp. The firm now sees a 3.5% increase in chip sales this year to $280.1B, slightly below the 4% growth it predicted just two months ago.

10/08/2008  October 7, 2008: Micromem Applied Sensor Technologies Inc. (MAST), a wholly owned US subsidiary of Micromem Technologies, has established a corporate office in New York City, part of the parent company's strategic plan to focus on magnetic sensor opportunities independent of the magnetic random access memory (MRAM) market.

10/03/2008  Already banged up by a punishing downturn that has evaporated sales and profits (and capacity spending), DRAM suppliers must now deal with another problem: the US financial crisis will likely make it a lot tougher for them to handle debt and obtain new funds for capital spending, notes a new report from iSuppli.

09/30/2008  IC Insights president Bill McClean discusses the thinking behind his firm's recent forecast downgrade to 4% thanks to worldwide economic changes and persistently sluggish memory pricing -- but also backs up his optimism over inventories and end-use demand.