03/24/2006  March 24, 2006 - AmberWave Systems Corp., Salem, NH, a developer of IP relating to strained silicon and other advanced materials, and Purdue U. have agreed to jointly develop technologies for integrating semiconductor devices on III-V materials.

03/24/2006  March 24, 2006 - Three executives of Samsung are the latest to be punished for their roles in a DRAM price-fixing conspiracy, according to the US Justice Department.

03/21/2006  March 21, 2006 - Rambus Inc. has signed what it calls its "first system-level patent license" with Fujitsu Ltd., a wide-ranging and potentially lucrative deal spanning all of Fujitsu's business.

03/20/2006  March 20, 2006 - Elpida Memory Inc. plans to boost production of DRAM chips used in cell phones by year's end to nearly half its total output, in an effort to tap a high-growth market while minimizing its PC market exposure.

03/20/2006  March 20, 2006 - 2005 may have been a soft year for semiconductor sales, but the perennial top three suppliers -- Intel, Samsung, and Texas Instruments Inc. -- all beat the industry's overall growth to solidify their respective spots, according to final 2005 rankings from iSuppli Corp.

03/17/2006  March 17, 2006 - Semiconductor industry capital spending was expected to be flat to slightly up in 2006, but unexpectedly strong investments from chipmakers have caused another analyst firm to raise its capex forecasts to 10% growth in 2006.

03/16/2006  March 16, 2006 - Demand for chips used in handsets and LCD displays has maxed out older-process capacity at top foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), causing the foundry to use up other lines and refer some orders to affiliate Vanguard Semiconductor International Corp.

03/15/2006  March 15, 2006 - South Korea has asked to sit down with Japanese officials to discuss a move to levy countervailing duties on DRAM memory chips, possibly a prelude to pushing the World Trade Organization for a ruling on the dispute.

03/15/2006  March 15, 2006 - ChipMOS Technologies Ltd. posted a profit of $14.5 million on revenues of $130.4 million in 4Q05, up from a $3.2 million profit and $112.0 million in sales in the same period a year ago.

03/14/2006  March 14, 2006 - Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has ramped to volume production of its 512Mb DDR2 DRAM using 80nm process technologies.

03/13/2006  March 13, 2006 - Four schools in California have joined to establish the Western Institute for Nanoelectronics in an effort to explore spintronics as a possible alternative to silicon CMOS for semiconductor devices beyond the 65nm node.

03/09/2006  March 9, 2006 - Sematech has begun work on a project to investigate alternative materials to silicon in MOSFET channels, in an effort to develop process technologies that achieve enhanced mobility without compromising reliability.

03/08/2006  March 8, 2006 - Micron Technology Inc., Boise, ID, has agreed to acquire Lexar Media Inc., Fremont, CA, in a $690 million stock swap. Through the deal Micron bolsters its NAND flash business with controller and system design technology.

03/08/2006  March 8, 2006 - Spansion Inc., the former flash memory JV between AMD and Fujitsu, has filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Macronix International and Macronix America concerning false statements about its MirrorBit flash products.

03/07/2006  March 7, 2006 - Infineon Technologies AG has developed a computer memory module with an integrated thermal sensor using real-time temperature data to optimize system performance, targeting use in forthcoming mobile platforms from Intel.

03/07/2006  March 6, 2006 - Toshiba Corp. plans to spend 500 billion yen (roughly US $4.3 billion) to build a fourth plant at its Yokkaichi facility to make NAND flash memory chips.

03/03/2006  March 3, 2006 - Four sales & marketing executives from Hynix Semiconductor have pleaded guilty and accepted jail times and fines for their roles in a DRAM price-fixing conspiracy.

03/01/2006  A few days after Intel’s announcement, Freescale Semiconductor (Austin, TX) stated it had solved the problem of building metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) devices in gallium arsenide (GaAs)-an innovation that could mean new uses for GaAs, since GaAs MOSFETs should be faster than their similarly sized silicon counterparts.

02/28/2006 

02/23/2006  February 23, 2006 - Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. said it is making the driver source code for its OneNAND flash memory publicly available, in an effort to generate interest from the open source community, particularly for designers using the Linux v2.6 operating system.