02/26/2008  by Bob Haavind, Editorial Director, Solid State Technology
Feb. 26, 2008 - Texas Instruments' external development/manufacturing VP Thomas Thorpe gave an enlightening address about the ongoing benefits derived from the company's 'fab-lite' strategy at the recent Strategic Materials Conference in Half Moon Bay, CA. No more advanced CMOS wafers and 32nm work is going on inside TI's own fabs -- but he left door open that they might return in the future.

02/25/2008  Feb. 25, 2008 - Toshiba America Electronic Components says it has expanded its family of power multi-chip modules (MCM) with a synchronous step-down converter switching module, targeting applications such as mobile computers, servers, and network equipment.

02/25/2008  by M. David Levenson, Editor-in-Chief, Microlithography World
Feb. 25, 2008 - Molecular Imprints CEO Mark Melliar-Smith tells WaferNEWS why its Imprio 300 imprint lithography tool is the "only game in town" for semiconductor prototyping and process development in the <30nm realm, capable of printing 32nm, 28nm and 22nm features at 4WPH with 35nm overlay.

02/21/2008  by Ed Korczynski, Senior Technical Editor, Solid State Technology
A new report from TechSearch International forecasts millions of silicon wafers will be made with through-silicon vias (TSV) in the year 2014. With TSV technology now moving past the feasibility (R&D) phase and into the commercialization phase, the question isn't whether this 3D interconnect will be adopted, but how soon it will balance cost/performance vs. existing technologies to break into real mainstream use.

02/20/2008  Feb. 20, 2008 - Sony and Toshiba are disclosing more details about their semiconductor JV, including PlayStation chips, following preliminary agreements last fall.

02/20/2008  ; Techcet Group LLC reports the market for interconnect metals and dielectric materials, totaling $350 million in 2007, is maintaining its lead as the highest growth area compared to other semiconductor process materials. The latest edition of the Techcet report "Advanced Interconnect Materials for the 65 through 32nm Nodes" discusses the materials used and likely to be used in subsequent technology generations for logic and memory products.

02/19/2008  Feb. 19, 2008 - Toshiba and SanDisk have signed a nonbinding memorandum of understanding to form a new production JV and a new 300mm wafer fab for NAND flash memory, with a definitive agreement expected later this year. Separately, Toshiba indicated it will build another chip plant in Japan to boost in-house semiconductor capacity.

02/15/2008  Feb. 15, 2008 - After a two-quarter blackout, Hynix Semiconductor is preparing to resume selling DRAM chips on the sport market, likely starting in 2Q08, according to the Korea Times.

02/15/2008  Feb. 15, 2008 - Facing limits in its ability to expand internal capacity, Singapore's Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing has bought 100% ownership of Hitachi's Singapore unit, Hitachi Semiconductor Singapore Pte Ltd (HNS), including a local 200mm fab near its existing campus, for ~$233M in cash.

02/15/2008  ; Yole Developpement has just released a new report entitled "WLP & Embedded Die Technologies 2008". This report presents the manufacturing challenges faced by the wafer level packaging industry in terms of MEMS, CMOS image sensors and semiconductor ICs.

02/15/2008  by Ed Korczynski, Senior Technical Editor, Solid State Technology
There's a strategic shift coming in how the IC industry develops basic manufacturing processes. With increasing manufacturing complexity at the 45nm node occurring at the same time as chip commoditization, the industry now has multiple integration targets to drive the development of new unit processes. Novellus' EVP Tom Caulfield weighs in on this trend.

02/08/2008  MEMS developer Nanochip is working to address the limits of flash memory technology. The company's first products, planned for production in 2010, are expected to exceed 100GB/chipset, reaching terabytes in the future. Small Times' Debra Vogler reports.

02/07/2008  Feb. 7, 2008 - Toshiba and partner SanDisk reportedly have settled on a location in which to build their fifth NAND flash fab, sharing the ¥700B (US ~$6.58B) investment in the new facility, according to a report by the Asahi Shimbun. Mass production is slated for fiscal 2009.

02/07/2008  Feb. 7, 2008 - SanDisk says it will start shipping 16Gb multilevel NAND flash memory products built with 43nm process technologies during 2Q08, with 32Gb versions slated for later in the year. Manufacturing of the newer process node is underway at Toshiba's Yokkaichi operations near Nagoya, Japan, produced initially at Fab 4, followed by Fab 3 sometime in 2H08.

02/06/2008  Feb. 6. 2008 - Test/probe-card firm FormFactor says it will trim its workforce by 14% (mostly manufacturing workers at its HQ in Livermore, CA, according to local reports), taking a charge of $4-$5M mostly in 1Q08 as it tries to fight through a soft market.

02/06/2008  Feb. 6, 2008 - At this week's International Solid State Circuit Conference (ISSCC), European R&D consortia IMEC is pushing several new converter technologies built in 90nm digital CMOS, and encouraging more participants in continuing the work. It's also showing a full-CMOS 60GHz antenna array, and a chip for small EEG machines.

02/05/2008  Intel CTO Justin Rattner gives WaferNEWS some insights into the development process of its "breakthrough" 256Mb phase-change memory multilevel cell device, to be revealed at this week's ISSCC. While replacing DRAM is a long ways away, "the most ardent advocates for phase-change see that potential," he said.

02/05/2008  Feb. 5, 2008 - Hynix Semiconductor plans to invest 1.5-2.0T won (US ~$1.6B) to hike production in its 300mm DRAM plant in Wuxi, China (C2 line) by about 20% to 120,000 wafers/month, increasing its product mix coming from China to 55%-60% DRAM, according to a report in the Korea Times.

02/05/2008  by Debra Vogler, Senior Technical Editor, Solid State Technology
Feb. 5, 2008 - With flash process technology scaling approaching its limits, along comes Nanochip, a developer of MEMS silicon data storage chips, with a technology that does not use lithography in its manufacture. Company execs tell WaferNEWS about their planned >100GB/chipset products, which could start prototyping this year and be ready for manufacturing by 2010.

02/05/2008  Feb. 4, 2008 - At this week's International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), Fujitsu Labs says it will show a power amplifier (PA) built with 90nm process technologies that operates at 77Ghz, realizing CMOS RF frontend circuitry with a power amplifier that integrates with baseband circuitry on a chip, for use in millimeter-wave automotive radar systems.