02/21/2006  February 21, 2006 - Taiwanese foundry UMC has fabricated a push-push voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) with an operating frequency of 192GHz using 0.13-micron process technologies, the highest operating frequency for any silicon-based circuit to date.

02/16/2006  February 16, 2006 - Microsoft's Xbox 360 gaming systems have had tight supplies thanks to publicized component shortages. Now, at least we know who's partly to blame.

02/13/2006  February 13, 2006 - The US International Trade Commission has changed its mind and will investigate a complaint by SanDisk Corp. against STMicroelectronics alleging patent infringement of NOR and NAND flash memory technologies.

02/10/2006  February 10, 2006 - Micron Technology Inc. is merging its mobile and systems memory business units into one memory group, combining its businesses for NAND flash, DRAM and specialty memory.

02/10/2006  February 10, 2006 - Toshiba Corp. is increasing its capex budget for fiscal 2005 to ¥289 billion ($2.44 billion), an increase of ¥63 billion (US $531.4 million), in order to better compete with NAND flash rivals Micron and Samsung.

02/09/2006  February 9, 2006 - SEMATECH has launched a new project to explore the feasibility of three-dimensional (3D) interconnect technology for the semiconductor industry.

02/09/2006  February 9, 2006 - Researchers from TI and MIT, funded by DARPA, say they have developed have developed what they claim is the industry's lowest-voltage 65nm-based SRAM.

02/09/2006  February 9, 2006 - Renesas Technology Corp. has developed a massively parallel processor based on a matrix architecture, designed specifically to handle image and audio multimedia data processing tasks.

02/08/2006  February 9, 2006 - SanDisk Corp. and Toshiba have accelerated plans to add 50% capacity the Fab 3 300mm wafer fab in Yokkaichi, Japan, to 70,000 wafers/month by March 2007, at a cost of approximately $500 million.

02/07/2006  February 7, 2006 - Underscoring its commitment to seeking high-growth consumer segments outside the PC world, Freescale Semiconductor is teaming up with longtime Crolles2 partner STMicroelectronics to drive IBM's PowerPC architecture further into applications in the automotive market.

02/07/2006  By James Montgomery, News Editor

Analysts surveyed by WaferNews generally see steadily improving growth for the semiconductor market for the next three years - and more muted cycles than the wild days of the past. Projections for chip sales in 2006 cluster in the mid single digits, although the optimists see as much as 17%-20% growth, thanks to a healthy world economy and plenty of hot consumer products.

02/07/2006  February 7, 2006 - A new analyst report suggests the market for various types of nano-enabled memory will quadruple from $1.4 billion in 2008 to more than $7.0 billion in 2010, as conventional memory technologies fail to scale to address problems in leading-edge chip technologies such as leakage.

02/06/2006  February 6, 2006 - In a paper delivered at this week's International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), STMicroelectronics and Hynix Semiconductor say they have developed a 4Gbit NAND flash memory device with throughput of 36MB/sec, roughly 50% better than available technologies.

02/03/2006  February 3, 2006 - KLA-Tencor Corp., San Jose, CA, has introduced a new version of its e-beam inspection platform, touted as a "cornerstone" of the company's efforts to support front-end-of-line and back-end-of-line semiconductor manufacturing at next-generation 65nm-45nm nodes.

02/01/2006  February 1, 2006 - In the first achievement under its new "fab lite" business model, Infineon Technologies AG has produced sample 65nm chips, leveraging technologies developed under an alliance with IBM, Chartered, and Samsung.

02/01/2006  I’ve always thought capitalism worked well in the world economy because it aligned perfectly with human nature.

02/01/2006  CombiMatrix Corp. has produced a CMOS chip for the timely identification of influenza strains.

02/01/2006  January 31, 2006 - Japanese DRAM memory provider Elpida Memory Inc. has agreed to plead guilty and pay an $84 million fine for participating in an international conspiracy to fix prices in the DRAM market, joining four other memory manufacturers in plea deals that have added up to more than $725 million in fines.

01/26/2006 

01/24/2006  January 24, 2006 - Conditions are improving in the beleaguered DRAM market, as supplies are worked off and prices start to rise, but it's still too early to declare a fundamental recovery in the market, according to a new report from analyst firm iSuppli Corp., El Segundo, CA.