03/19/2007  March 15, 2007 -- /BUSINESS WIRE/ -- SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- SELA, a leading global supplier of engineering and failure analysis tools for the semiconductor industry, has set its production schedule for the Xact, the first STEM/TEM sample preparation system using the disruptive new AIMTM (Adaptive Ion Milling) technology.

03/16/2007  March 16, 2007 - Bede X-ray Metrology has announced that SEMATECH will use a Bede x-ray metrology system to evaluate novel semiconductor materials needed for the 45nm and 32nm technology nodes and beyond.

03/15/2007  March 15, 2007 - Luxtera Inc. has announced that it is the first company to use a standard SOI-CMOS fabrication process to develop an integrated long-wavelength photodetection capability by strategically adding pure germanium around optical waveguides.

03/15/2007  March 15, 2007 - IC Insights today released its ranking of the Top 25 worldwide semiconductor (ICs and OSDs --optoelectronics, sensors, and discretes) sales leaders for 2006. Although six of the 25 suppliers posted revenue spikes of greater than 35% in 2006, about one-third of the companies (eight) registered below-average sales growth (i.e., less than 9%) last year.

03/15/2007  March 15, 2007 - Chipmakers applying for building 300mm wafer fabs on the Hsinchu Science Park (HSP) were notified last month by the park administration to hold a joint groundbreaking ceremony in May to mark the beginning of the construction, according to CENS, the Taiwan Economic News.

03/14/2007  March 14, 2007 - Elpida Memory Inc., a Japanese supplier of dynamic random access memory (DRAM), has entered into a multi-year partnership with IMEC, an independent nanoelectronics research center, to perform R&D for beyond 50nm DRAM process generations, said IMEC today.

03/14/2007  Ramtron boasts the highest density FRAM device available with the launch of its FM22L16. Based on a 130 nm CMOS manufacturing process, it promises quadruple the capacity of previous memory chips.

03/14/2007  March 14, 2007 - Packaging equipment developer NEXX Systems has entered into an ongoing joint development program (JDP) with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. (TSMC). The JDP represents a collaborative effort to assess, develop, optimize, manufacture, and/or market electrodeposition processes using NEXX's Stratus system, including through silicon vias (TSV), wafer-level chip-scale packaging, and redistribution layers.

03/12/2007  March 12, 2007 - Qimonda AG, the former memory unit of Infineon, has announced the planned expansion of its existing facility for the assembly and testing of memory ICs (backend) in China's Suzhou Industrial Park.

03/12/2007  March 12, 2007 - Texas Instruments and Ramtron International Corp. have entered into a commercial manufacturing agreement for ferroelectric random access memory (FRAM) products. The agreement provides for the production of Ramtron's FRAM memory products on TI's advanced 130nm FRAM manufacturing process, including Ramtron's 4Mb FRAM memory.

03/12/2007  March 12, 2007 - Fujitsu Ltd. has released its new LSI image-processing chip MB91680A-T as a new addition to the company's Milbeaut line of advanced image-processing LSI chips for digital cameras.

03/12/2007  March 12, 2007 - IMEC, the independent research center based in Belgium, has announced that the Flemish Minister of Science and Innovation, Fientje Moerman, signed a new frame agreement between IMEC and the Government of Flanders for the period 2007-2011.

03/12/2007  March 12, 2007 - Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has begun shipping samples of an 8GB memory chip to major mobile electronics manufacturers. It is the highest density embedded flash memory developed to date, according to the company.

03/09/2007  The plenary speech at the SPIE's Advanced Lithography conference characterized nanoimprint lithography (NIL) as "unique . . . in that it is cheap enough, fast enough, and flexible enough that it can be used for things other than CMOS." Potential markets for NIL include sub-32-nm CMOS, post-CMOS devices, high-brightness LED, storage media, MEMS, flat panel displays, flexible electronics, and biomedical devices.

03/07/2007  March 7, 2007 - Intel Corp. has unveiled halogen-free packages for its NOR flash family, StrataFlash Cellular Memory (M18) products, which eliminate halogenated flame retardants from the packaging materials.

03/06/2007  March 6, 2007 - AmberWave Systems Corp., a developer of strained silicon IP, and Intel Corp. have settled back-and-forth litigation ongoing since 2005, with the companies now agreeing to a 10-year licensing deal.

03/06/2007  March 6, 2007 - TSMC and customer Nvidia say they have produced functional 65nm embedded DRAM verified "first time right," targeting the technology at digital consumer/gaming devices, multimedia processors, and high-end networking.

03/05/2007  March 5, 2007 - Elpida Memory Inc. and Toshiba Corp. make up the remainder of a $105 million private equity investment in Taiwan chip assembler PowerTech Technology Inc., according to the Taiwan Economic News.

03/05/2007  March 5, 2007 - Worldwide sales of semiconductors remain on pace at 9% year-on-year growth, though they were also down ~1% from December along seasonal norms, according to data from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA).

03/02/2007  March 2, 2007 - Confirming rumors and expectations, Intel Corp. says it has indeed leading a round of investments in Taiwan chip assembly firm Powertech Inc., one of the chipmaker's largest investments in Asia to date.