08/05/2008  Despite a mild recovery in 2Q08, global DRAM makers are once again building inventories and pulling the rug out from prices, and the buildup will likely push out a full market recovery until the end of next year, according to a new warning by iSuppli.

08/04/2008  A look at the top four global foundries' latest financials and outlooks suggests the market outlook for foundries heading into 2H08 and early 2009 is starting to weaken due to uncertainties and fluctuation concerning demand.

08/04/2008  Memory concerns aside, there's still reason to be happy with growth in the semiconductor industry, mainly thanks to emerging markets' hunger for PCs and mobile phones, according to the latest data from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA).

08/01/2008  Sarnoff exec David Cheskis describes the company's backside thinning technology that enables the use of SOI substrates, and why SOI is a more cost-effective and better performance alternative than bulk silicon for back-illuminated image sensors.

08/01/2008  During SEMICON West, we arranged to interview as many technology leaders as possible through short video coverage — conversations really.

07/31/2008  Fabs have historically relied upon optical inspection as a robust, reliable, well-understood technique to find all kinds of defects, but shrinking feature sizes and more demanding surface cleanliness requirements are exposing its limits. Enter Qcept Technologies, which says its technique can identify defects by measuring changes in work function.

07/30/2008  After several years of 40%-50% growth, the market for silicon-on-insulator (SOI) watched sales sink to nearly flat growth in 2007, and despite a projected spike over the next two years annual growth will barely be 10% by 2012, according to data from VLSI Research.

07/29/2008  Susan Felch, principal member of Spansion's frontend development staff, summarized recent work regarding ultrashallow junctions at the West Coast Junction Technology Group meeting held in conjunction with SEMICON West (July 17) in San Francisco.

07/21/2008  By Paul Lindner, EV Group, St. Florian, Austria
Well-established as a process for forming silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrates, wafer bonding is broadening its horizons to encompass bonding wafers for a variety of fast-growing applications. Regardless of the materials involved, packaging has emerged as the primary underlying driver. As wafer bonding technology evolves, key market, application, and industry trends can be linked to emerging advanced packaging requirements.

07/18/2008  The content of Sokudo's annual lithography breakfast at SEMICON West on Wednesday was very similar to what one could have heard at SPIE back in February, but it was helpful to hear it again, focused on the 32nm node. There were no surprises, which was good news; a central theme was a review of double patterning methods, including Applied's spacer method.

07/16/2008  Mihir Parikh, president/CEO of Aquest Systems, talked with SST about why many fabs are taking a closer look at the systems they have in place and making incremental changes to improve them, rather than diving into new facility upgrades.

07/15/2008  Beneath the industry's current schizophrenia -- slump in mainstream IC, growth in PV solar -- there are opportunities to compete and succeed with specific technologies and products tuned to the unique needs of both logic and memory customers, explained Novellus execs in a packed-theater presentation.

07/12/2008  Numonyx BV, the flash memory joint venture between Intel and STMicroelectronics, have agreed to a foundry deal for Elpida to make its NOR flash memory starting in mid-2009 using 300mm/65nm-45nm process technologies.

07/09/2008  Semiconductor foundries' recent vows to step up pricing may be stalled due to softer-than-anticipated demand projections for 3Q, according to one analyst firm.

07/09/2008  July 9, 2008 -- Siimpel Corporation, a supplier of optical microsystems solutions, and VistaPoint Technologies a business unit of Flextronics and supplier of mobile camera solutions have introduced the first silicon MEMS-based autofocus camera for the handset market.

07/08/2008  EV Group(EVG)announced the order and successful installation of its 300-mm bonding, alignment, and photoresist fully automatic processing tools at ST Microelectronics'(ST) 300-mm through-silicon-via (TSV) pilot line in Crolles, France. The company says the tools will be used in the manufacture of CMOS imaging sensors (CIS) Using TSV technology.

07/08/2008  July 8, 2008 -- SV Probe (SV), a wholly owned subsidiary of SGX mainboard-listed Ellipsiz Ltd, has introduced two new probe cards: LogicTouch, a MEMS-based fine pitch vertical probe card, and SureTouch, a one touch full wafer probe solution for NAND Flash Memory.

07/07/2008  SST sat down with technical execs from Intel, IBM, and IMEC at this year's VLSI Symposium to go over their various papers presented, much of which involved work on 32nm and SOI (or why they used bulk CMOS instead). Plus, a lively panel discussion offered historical perspective (10 years on) and future plans for SOI.

07/04/2008  New technologies are needed to keep the semiconductor industry on track with Moore's Law. Step and Flash Imprint Lithography (S-FIL) has gained traction in recent years among several leading memory manufacturers.

07/01/2008  July 1, 2008 - A quick scan of news and analyst reports this week indicates DRAM pricing is firming up, but NAND flash is falling fast due to sluggish demand, which for the first time in a while is lacking a familiar driver.