02/06/2007  February 6, 2007 - The new owners of Cypress Semiconductor's Silicon Valley Technology Center bring two varied backgrounds of technology and services expertise, both of which will help the center expand into new areas such as MEMS, and possibly extend relationships with foundries, according to GM Bert Bruggeman, in an interview with WaferNEWS.

02/06/2007  February 6, 2007 - SEMATECH's engineers will focus on planar CMOS approaches and new channel materials for transistors at the 22nm half-pitch node, relegating FinFET device structures as an alternative approach, the consortium said in a statement. The position follows input from member organizations and experts at a recent IEDM panel.

02/05/2007  February 5, 2007 - Memory manufacturers once again made up the biggest slice (43%) of all capital spending in 2006, and are poised to take the lion's share of fab spending in 2007 as well, according to data from Strategic Marketing Associates (SMA).

02/05/2007  February 5, 2007 - Riding a surge of shipments in 4Q, Korean chipmaker Hynix Semiconductor beat out rival Qimonda to take the No.2 spot for all of 2006 behind Samsung, according to new data from iSuppli Corp.

02/02/2007  February 2, 2007 - A new approach to synthesizing nanowires using CMOS-compatible technology could result in revolutionary highly sensitive biomolecule detectors for biological diagnostic applications, according to scientists at Yale U.

02/02/2007  February 2, 2007 - Macronix International Co. Ltd. enjoyed five-year highs in profit margins and earnings last year due in large part to "swarming" orders from Nintendo for Mask ROM chips and improved costs for flash-memory production, and another boost in 2H07 will require significant additional capacity investments, according to the Taiwan Economic News.

02/01/2007  February 1, 2007 - Intel Corp. is reportedly taking part in a $106 million private equity investment in Taiwan's most profitable chip assembly firm, Powertech Technology Inc., with an announcement planned for sometime in 1H07, according to the Taiwan Economic News.

02/01/2007  February 1, 2007- Spansion Inc. says it has completed the transition of migrating from 200mm to 300mm wafer processing at its Submicron Development Center R&D facility in Sunnyvale, what the company claims is the state's first 300mm R&D facility, and the only Silicon Valley company with 300mm flash memory in development.

01/31/2007  A major Korean semiconductor manufacturer placed an order with the SEZ Group for Da Vinci systems, to be used for back-end-of-line (BEOL) polymer removal. The four systems will perform aluminum/copper polymer cleans on 300- and 200-nm DRAM memory devices with sub-90-nm process technologies.

01/30/2007  January 30, 2007 - Count one more chipmaker that's decided to get out of the leading-edge R&D rat-race. Cypress Semiconductor Corp. says it is selling its Silicon Valley Technology Center (SVTC) 65nm process R&D shop to a pair of private equity firms for approximately $53 million in cash.

01/29/2007  January 29, 2007 - So who are the tool supplier winners behind Intel's big announcement that it's using high-k/metal gate (HK+MG) technology in 45nm transistors slated for shipment later this year? One firm reportedly thinks it knows the answer at least for one of the hotly contested process areas: atomic-layer deposition (ALD).

01/29/2007  January 29, 2007 - Hours after Intel uncrated its 45nm transistors using high-k dielectric and metal gates for shipment later this year, SEMATECH and the IBM Common Platform Alliance both released statements indicating that they, too, are in the final stages of tinkering with the technologies.

01/29/2007  January 29, 2007 - Touting "a significant breakthrough in transistor technology," Intel Corp. says it has progressed its 45nm process technology from a SRAM test chip unveiled in Jan. 2006 into a working 45nm transistor -- devices that incorporate a hafnium-based high-k dielectric material and a new combination of metals for the transistor gate electrode. The new "Penryn" transistor will start shipping in volume by year's end on various systems, including those with Microsoft Vista OS.

01/26/2007  January 26, 2007 - A month after making a splash with plans to create a DRAM megafab joint venture, partners Elpida Memory Inc. and Powerchip Semiconductor Corp. have finalized some of the details, including the name of the venture, initial investment levels, and a schedule for equipment installation and mass production.

01/25/2007  January 25, 2007 - Toshiba Corp. and SanDisk Corp. say they have developed 16Gb (2GB) and 8Gb (1GB) NAND flash memory fabricated with 56nm process technologies.

01/25/2007  January 25, 2007 - Though it will follow through with 45nm work done with its Crolles2 alliance through the end of this year, STMicroelectronics will seek to pursue 32nm development elsewhere with partners and/or in the framework of an alliance, executives indicated in the company's quarterly results conference call. Crolles2, meanwhile, will narrow its focus to "derivative technologies" that support ST's wireless and mobile applications efforts.

01/25/2007  January 25, 2007 - SEMATECH and Tokyo Electron Limited (TEL) have entered into a multiyear joint development program to improve prospects for using 3D interconnect technology and high-mobility channel materials in advanced semiconductor manufacturing, both sides said today in a statement.

01/25/2007  A team of UCLA and Caltech chemists reported the successful demonstration of a large-scale, "ultra-dense" memory device that stores information using reconfigurable molecular switches. This research represents an important step toward the creation of molecular computers.

01/23/2007  January 23, 2006 - Seeking a more robust path toward leading-edge chip technology R&D, Freescale Semiconductor is aligning with longtime partner IBM and its chipmaking alliance including Chartered, Samsung, and Infineon -- at the expense of programs currently done through its participation in the Crolles chipmaking partnership.

01/23/2007  January 23, 2007 - In its conference call announcing 4Q06 financial results, Texas Instruments Inc. execs revealed plans to increase the company's use of foundries and reduce spending and internal process development, in an effort to manage demand and investments based on lessons learned from a similar market environment two years ago.