09/04/2007  EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW In this edition of Chip Forensics, Dick James tears down Apple's 8GB iPhone, and the reverse engineering of a Peregrine RF switch similar to the one used by Apple within it, to look at the unusual silicon-on-sapphire (SoS) process used for its manufacture.

09/04/2007  September 4, 2007 - Worldwide chip sales posted their best monthly growth in nearly a year in July, rising 3.2% vs. June largely due to an incremental climb in memory pricing, according to the latest data from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). But taking out the three-month average, sales didn't look so pretty.

09/04/2007  An MPC Technology product, VIGON RC 101 cleans accumulated flux residues from ovens and general solder waste from wave soldering machines. The chemistry has no flash point, and removes eutectic and lead-free flux residues.

08/31/2007  August 31, 2007 - Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd. and Singapore's Nanyang Technological U. have opened a 100sq. m "Chartered@NTU" joint lab to focus on nanoscale CMOS process technology and reliability.

08/31/2007  August 31, 2007 - Countering an initial report just days ago, Hynix says it will keep one of the two 200mm lines it was reportedly going to sell off, and will instead upgrade the NAND flash line to boost internal capacity.

08/31/2007  IBM has announced two major scientific achievements: One involves probing magnetic anisotropy -- which determines ability to store information -- in atoms. The other describes the first single-molecule switch.

08/30/2007  August 30, 2007 - Intel Corp. says it has received a "second request" from the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for more information in its regulatory review of the chipmaker's proposed nonvolatile memory joint venture with STMicroelectronics, and says it doesn't have a specific closure date for the transaction.

08/30/2007  August 30, 2007 - A Tokyo district court has upheld Fujitsu Ltd.'s claims that Nanya Technology Corp.'s Japanese unit infringed its DRAM patents, according to the company and media reports.

08/29/2007  August 29, 2007 - NAND average selling prices (ASP) have recovered to flat to slightly up since a 33% plunge in 1Q07, and demand is picking up, notably for computing applications -- but beware of a lot of capacity that's about to come online, notes analyst firm Semiconductor Partners, in a new research report.

08/29/2007  August 29, 2007 - Toshiba Corp. is speeding up its planned 25% increase in production of CMOS image sensors used by roughly six months, from next March to this October, due to projections of growing demand in the handset market and use of cell phone cameras with increasingly higher resolutions, notes the Nikkei daily.

08/29/2007  August 29, 2007 - Korean foundry Dongbu HiTek says it will start volume production next month of low-power 8MB/3V SRAM devices for EMLSI, a provider of memory for mobile applications, having shifted the work from Dongbu's 0.18-micron CMOS process to its 0.15-micron process.

08/28/2007  High-k and metal-gates (HK+MG) has been touted as the biggest change in semiconductors in 40 years, but as we approach the limits of silicon channels for CMOS circuits, compound semiconductors are being reconsidered as building blocks for mainstream ICs -- and that will be a far greater integration challenge. Enter Intel researchers, who now say they've passed a milestone along the road many travel to heterogeneous integration: integrated superior device performance.

08/28/2007  August 28, 2007 - Contract pricing for all memory devices have shown signs of recovery in the past month, but stubbornly soft spot prices threaten to erode those gains, and the next few weeks could spell real trouble for the DRAM market, according to data from several analysts.

08/27/2007  August 27, 2007 - Concerns about LSI Logic's strategy in the NAND flash memory segment are "no longer warranted," according to an industry analyst, who says the company is showing better end-market fundamentals and a clearer direction in NAND, including how to address several implementation hurdles for solid-state storage devices (SSD).

08/27/2007  August 27, 2007 - Months after initiating a policy that requires government approval to invest in or export certain technologies, the Korean government has narrowed its definition to 40 core "technologies of national interest" in a variety of industries, with DRAM and NAND flash chipmaking at the top of the list.

08/27/2007  August 27, 2007 - A roundup of the past week's headlines from Japan nets an interview with Elpida Memory president Yukio Sakamoto, musing about a $3 ceiling for DRAM prices, softness for 200mm tools, and the market impact of Samsung's recent multiline production blackout. Also in the news are Renesas/NEC's 45nm ramp schedule, new quake-minimizing systems, an investor rebuff from NEC, and a miniature lamp for a new breed of tiny inspection devices.

08/24/2007  August 24, 2007 - Fabless giant Qualcomm became the first fabless company to crack the top 10 chip supplier ranks in 2Q07, buoyed by its ascent in the wireless area, according to new data from iSuppli Corp. Meanwhile, many well-known Asian chip suppliers took hits during the quarter.

08/24/2007  With its recent move into production and commercial shipment of its top-emissive, polymer-based organic light-emitting diode (P-OLED) microdisplays, MicroEmissive Displays (MED) has become the first European company to manufacture such devices at volume levels. Small Times' Tom Cheyney reports.

08/23/2007  August 23, 2007 - Korea's Hynix Semiconductor will likely sell off chipmaking equipment from its M8 and M9 200mm DRAM lines in Cheong-ju, North Chungcheong Province, by the end of this year in order to shift more production to its 300mm business and increase productivity, according to anonymous "high-ranking" company officials quoted by the Korea Times, who also projected spending ~12.5T won ($13.25B) by the end of 2010 to build 3-4 new 300mm DRAM plants.

08/22/2007  August 22, 2007 - Semiconductor sales should slow down in 2007 to a 4.8% clip after a 8.8% year-on-year increase in 2006, but will bounce back next year with 8.1% growth, and maybe better than that if demand remains strong and suppliers manage their capacity expansions, according to data from IDC.