05/22/2006  While the common 90nm-65nm platform announced by IBM, Chartered, and Samsung on Sept. 22 aims to offer users the clear benefit of multiple manufacturing sources for a single design, and help fabless design houses better match the IDMs in designing for manufacturability, it's less clear how much of an impact such cooperative partnerships of big chip manufacturers will actually have on suppliers.

05/22/2006  May 22, 2006 - Key ASIC, a Santa Clara, CA-based provider of ASIC and system-on-chip services, has signed a partnership with foundry Silterra Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. to offer streamlined design-to-manufacture services for ASICs in the mobile and consumer electronics markets.

05/18/2006  May 18, 2006 - European microelectronics consortium IMEC and Riber, a French supplier of molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) technology for compound semiconductors, are collaborating to introduce germanium (Ge) and III-V materials for CMOS scaling beyond the 22nm manufacturing node and beyond.

05/18/2006  May 18, 2006 - Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) says it has fully qualified its 65nm low-power process technology, with several products already ramped and delivering production volumes.

05/17/2006  May 17, 2006 - Toshiba made big strides in NAND flash sales in 1Q06 to pull away from the pack as the clear No. 2 supplier behind market giant Samsung, mainly because everyone else took a bigger hit in ASPs, according to new data from iSuppli Corp.

05/17/2006  May 17, 2006 - Renesas Technology Corp. and Nanya Technology Corp. have settled four pending lawsuits filed by Renesas claiming patent infringement by Nanya's DRAM products, and have signed a cross-licensing agreement.

05/17/2006  May 17, 2006 - SEMATECH's R&D fab subsidiary Advanced Technology Development Facility (ATDF) and the U. of Texas-Austin have formed an Advanced Processing and Prototyping Center (AP2C), a specialized R&D program to develop leading-edge nanotechnology for use in semiconductor manufacturing.

05/12/2006  May 12, 2006 - Samsung Electronics, Hynix Semiconductor, and Infineon Technologies are digging into their wallets once again over their participation in a DRAM price-fixing scheme several years ago.

05/12/2006  May 12, 2006 - Toshiba Corp. plans to spend roughly 2 trillion yen (US $18.03 billion) between fiscal years 2006 and 2009, nearly double the amount from the previous three years -- and that amount is likely to go up if semiconductor demand keeps rising, according to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun.

05/12/2006  May 12, 2006 - Infineon Technologies AG has announced availability of its first cell phone chips utilizing 65nm CMOS process technology, leveraging its development and manufacturing alliance with IBM, Chartered, Infineon, and Samsung.

05/12/2006 

05/10/2006  May 10, 2006 - A new coalition of NAND flash memory suppliers, spearheaded by Hynix, Intel, Micron, and Sony, aims to develop a chip-level standard interface for NAND flash memory used in consumer electronics devices and computing platforms.

05/08/2006  May 8, 2006 - Mallinckrodt Baker Inc., Phillipsburg, NJ, is increasing manufacturing capacity for its CLk and PRS lines of high-performance photoresist strippers and residue removers.

05/04/2006  May 4, 2006 - Despite some losses caused by price wars, Japan's top seven semiconductor manufacturers are set to spend a record combined 1.01 trillion yen (US $8.91 billion) on facilities and equipment in fiscal 2006, a 7% increase from last year, according to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun.

05/02/2006  May 2, 2006 - Advanced Analogic Technologies Inc. will utilize Taiwan specialty foundry Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp. to produce its 0.35-micron multivoltage mixed-signal ModularBCD process technology on 200mm wafers.

05/01/2006  May 1, 2006 - Semiconductor Research Corp., a consortium of semiconductor industry and academic institutions based in Research Triangle Park, NC, has appointed Steven Hillenius as VP to head up the consortium, taking over for Ralph Cavin, who is retiring at year's end.

05/01/2006  Package-on-package (PoP) has emerged asthe preferred 3-D packaging solution for integration of logic and high-performance memory devices in mobile multimedia products.

05/01/2006  Total expected to be second highest on record

04/28/2006  April 28, 2006 - China's flagship foundry Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) said it cut its net losses nearly in half to $8.7 million in 1Q06 from the previous quarter, on 5% higher revenues of $351.1 million.

04/28/2006  April 28, 2006 - A "blistering" 49% surge in revenues to $1.16 billion propelled Infineon Technologies AG to the No. 2 spot among DRAM manufacturers in 1Q06, the highest position ever for the German chipmaker, according to new data from iSuppli Corp.