08/06/2007  August 6, 2007 - Chip sales during 1H07 were up roughly 2% from the same period a year ago, a couple ticks above full-year projections of 1.8% growth for the entire year, according to the latest data from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), whose "actual" and rolling-average sales both pinpoint significant weakness in the Americas market.

08/06/2007  August 6, 2007 - Rexchip Electronics Corp., the DRAM joint venture between Taiwan's PowerChip Semiconductor Corp. and Japan's Elpida Memory Inc., has started pilot production and aims to ramp output to 30,000 (300mm) WPM by year's end, using 70nm process technologies, notes the Taiwan Economic News.

08/06/2007  July 31, 2007 -- /PRnewswire/ -- ALLENTOWN, PA -- Akrion, Inc. recently received an order for a Velocity single-wafer cleaning system from a world leading manufacturer of semiconductor devices.

08/06/2007  August 6, 2007 - Samsung says it has resumed normal full operations of six production lines at its K2 fab in Giheung (lines 6, 7, 8, 9, 14, and S), one day after they were brought down on Aug.3 due to "a switchboard malfunction," though industry watchers have been quick to speculate about potential larger ramifications.

08/02/2007  August 2, 2007 - Qualcomm Inc. says it has taped out a chip fabricated on a low power-optimized 45nm CMOS process technology, using "very low-k" intermetal dielectrics and immersion lithography, and says it has started development work on a 40nm process.

07/31/2007  Mobility enhancements in ICs have typically been implemented using strain and mostly the same materials, but the industry is now working with high-k dielectrics and metal-gates (HK+MG). Applied Materials has released an ALD chamber for hafnium-oxide HK dielectric in its Centura platform that appears to be part of an excellent integrated HK+MG solution.

07/31/2007  Not surprisingly, analysts at a SEMICON West Bulls&Bears session found themselves at odds on several fronts, including the outlook for memory, 450mm wafers, and industry consolidation. But they also generally agreed that the semiconductor equipment market is in a pause right now, but it will not be severe and some even see a nice pickup next year; that the wild cycle swings of the past have moderated; and that major equipment buying sectors are not as synchronized as in the past.

07/31/2007  July 31, 2007 - Intel, Samsung, and TI remain in their familiar positions atop the list of top global semiconductor suppliers in 1H07 from a year ago, but after that the rankings were entirely redrawn, and more shakeups are on the way, according to an upcoming report from IC Insights.

07/30/2007  July 30, 2007 - A roundup of the past week's headlines from Japan center largely on April-June financial results, with Toshiba and NEC improving their profits (though largely due to restructuring and asset sales), while Fujitsu takes a hit for finance missteps.

07/27/2007  ZyCube Co. developed a chip-sized packaging technology, ZyCSP, for CMOS image sensors used for cell-phone cameras. ZyCube will market the technology and a line of chips it manufactures using ZyCSP globally, reports the Nikkei Business Daily.

07/25/2007  July 25, 2007 - Months after initiating a search for outside partners for 32nm development work following the wind-down of its Crolles alliance with NXP and Freescale, STMicroelectronics has found its new group of friends: IBM and members of its Common Platform alliance.

07/24/2007  July 12, 2007 -- /Report by IC Insights/ -- SCOTTSDALE, AZ -- After reaching a high of 51 percent in 1988, the Japanese IC suppliers have displayed a steady decline in marketshare.

07/24/2007  CEA/Leti-Minatec, a European R&D institute specializing in advanced microelectronics, and Alcatel Micro Machining Systems, manufacturer of deep reactive ion etch (DRIE) equipment for the MEMS and semiconductor industries, will collaborate to develop industrial process capability in DRIE and LTPECVD for 3D interconnect applications.

07/20/2007  July 20, 2007 - The proposed flash memory JV combining Intel and STMicroelectronics assets is still being hashed out in regulatory red tape, but it already has a new name: "Numonyx," a play on the word "mnemonics" (the art of assisting or improving memory), according to the companies.

07/20/2007  July 19, 2007 - Advanced Metrology Systems (AMS, formerly Philips AMS) has released three new metrology tools this week, offering model-based infrared (MBIR) metrology for 3D DRAM structures, and a surface wave system for multilayer measurements of copper/low-k films stacks.

07/19/2007  The main topics for discussion at Applied Materials' press event on Tuesday were about high-k/metal gate processes (HK+MG) and double patterning lithography, though much of the talks concentrated on the gate technology -- and how they created the delicately etched iceblocks serving as table centerpieces.

07/19/2007  Last night SST named the winners of our fifth annual Attendees Choice Awards at SEMICON West, spotlighting companies' technologies on both the wafer processing and final manufacturing sides of the fab that customers voted as the industry's best in terms of innovation, cost-of-ownership, and best solution to a problem. Congrats to our six winners: Olympus Micro-Imaging, FEI, Olympus Integrated Technologies America, SUSS MicroTec, Tessera, and FormFactor.

07/19/2007  July 18, 2007 - Silterra Malaysia has laid out its three-stage plan to pump up capacity for process technologies ranging from 0.18-micron to 65nm, including plans to build a new 20k-25k WPM 300mm wafer fab, at a total cost of $1.5-2.0 billion.

07/19/2007  July 18, 2007

07/18/2007  While the consumerization of the electronics industry is creating huge demand for semiconductor content, it is also causing enormous stress for chipmakers and equipment suppliers alike, according to representatives from each group speaking at a SEMI Executive Panel on Monday (July 16) at SEMICON West.