07/12/2005 

07/11/2005 

07/06/2005  July 6, 2005 - In the second quarter, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) ran its capacity at an 86% rate, higher than the 84% recorded by foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., a Merrill Lynch & Co.'s study shows, according to Taiwan Economic News.

07/05/2005  July 5, 2005 - Worldwide sales of semiconductors declined slightly in May to $18.05 billion, a sequential decline of 0.5% from the $18.14 billion reported in April, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) reported on July 2. May sales were up 4.1% from the $17.34 billion reported in May 2004.

07/01/2005  News snippets from the world of contamination control.

06/27/2005 

06/23/2005  June 23, 2005 - PowerChip Semiconductor Corp., ProMos Technologies Inc., and Nanya Technology Corp. have raised a total NT$43.5 billion (US$1.4 billion) for expansions in the first half of 2005, said the Taiwan Economic News. The three DRAM chipmakers will mostly spend the capital on expansions at their 300mm silicon-wafer foundry plants.

06/17/2005  The World Trade Organization (WTO) has ruled that the European Union also should revise the duties it has imposed against Hynix Semiconductor, four months after ruling that the US also violated trade regulations by instituting tariffs against the South Korean memory chipmaker.

06/14/2005  For years, chip industry pundits and managers have talked about the need for "soft landings" in semiconductor downturns to help smooth out the disruptive effects of boom/bust cycles, which have driven and derailed market growth for decades. Based on 1Q05 data released May 2, the semiconductor industry may be witnessing a bona fide soft landing after chip revenues reached record levels in 2H04.

06/14/2005  With worldwide DRAM sales giving a better-than-expected performance in 1Q05 following a seasonal 4Q peak, and some DRAM makers preparing to convert to higher-margin NAND flash memory, the worst may soon be over for the besieged DRAM market, based on new data from iSuppli Corp.

06/01/2005 

06/01/2005  Protecting Silicon From Extreme Environments

05/31/2005  May 31, 2005 - Worldwide sales of semiconductors declined slightly in April to $18.2 billion, a sequential decline of 1.2% from the $18.4 billion reported in March, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) reported today. April sales were up 6.9% from the $17.0 billion reported in April 2004. The SIA noted that April is traditionally a strong month for semiconductor sales.

05/24/2005  May 24, 2005 - IBM, Infineon, and Macronix have announced a joint research initiative to explore the potential of a new form of computer memory technology called phase-change memory (PCM), which stores data by changing the state of a special material from an amorphous to a crystalline structure, rather than storing data as an electrical charge.

05/20/2005  May 19, 2005 - Mattson Technology Inc. has announced that it has shipped multiple Helios RTP systems to a leading European chipmaker. Tool installations are scheduled to begin this month at the customer's 300mm fab.

05/18/2005  May 18, 2005 - ASML Holding NV (ASML) today announced it was awarded a customer contract from Winbond Electronics Corp. to equip its 300mm fab in Taiwan. No financial details are being disclosed. ASML will install systems from its TWINSCAN platform starting next month.

05/18/2005  Not even the industry's 800-lb. gorilla can withstand the irresistible force of sluggish market demand. Applied Materials Inc. reported orders for its chipmaking equipment in its fiscal 2Q05 (ended May 1) fell 30% year-on-year to $1.55 billion, while sales fell 8% to $1.86 billion. Sequentially, orders were down 7%, while sales were up 5% from fiscal 1Q05.

05/17/2005  By J. Robert Lineback, Senior Technical Editor

Semiconductor forecasting has never been easy, but in the flash memory arena, market projections have become doubly difficult. Demand for nonvolatile NAND-based flash continues to exceed projections due to strong growth in digital photography and the emergence of high-volume consumer electronics applications...

05/17/2005  Can SEMATECH Inc. help find new ways to squeeze more life out of conventional planar bulk transistors while delaying the need for nonclassical CMOS devices, such as FinFETs or other multigate FETs? That's the newest objective being added to SEMATECH's list of top 10 technical challenges for 2006, which will be used to formulate and focus about 75 R&D programs next year.

05/16/2005  May 16, 2005 - On May 11, Intel Corp. announced that Intel Technological Development (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. was formally established, with a total investment of over CNY 300 million (US$39 million), according to the Financial Times.