09/02/2003  August 27, 2003 - Elpida Memory, a Tokyo, Japan JV between Hitachi and NEC, and Toppan Printing Co. have agreed to co-develop photomasks for sub-100nm DRAM chips. The photomasks will be used on chips produced at Elpida's 300mm facility in Hiroshima.

08/28/2003  August 26, 2003 - Powerchip Semiconductor Corp., Hsinchu, Taiwan, and DRAM JV Elpida Memory, Tokyo, Japan, a DRAM JV between NEC and Hitachi, have extended a previous agreement to exchange foundry services for chip manufacturing processes.

08/28/2003  August 26, 2003 - Elpida Memory, Tokyo, Japan, a JV between NEC and Hitachi, plans to take over NEC's production facility in Hiroshima to bolster its position in the DRAM market.

08/27/2003  In what could be the first of many buyouts of small-tech memory makers, Advanced Micro Devices purchased molecular memory maker Coatue in June. Neil Gordon, nanotechnology partner at Sygertech and president of the Canadian NanoBusiness Alliance, thinks it could be the first of many such purchases as the semiconductor industry searches for new technologies to power the products of tomorrow.

08/25/2003  August 21, 2003 - Bolstered by recent decisions from the US and European Union to levy tariffs against Hynix Semiconductor, other DRAM manufacturers also are seeking similar government action against the South Korean chipmaker, according to local reports.

08/22/2003  August 19, 2003 - DRAM chipmaker Kingston Technology, Fountain Valley, CA, has signed a deal to provide technology to Elpida Memory, Tokyo, Japan, in exchange for non-voting stock.

08/18/2003  August 14, 2003 - Despite tariffs levied by the US and European Union, Hynix Semiconductor managed to gain on rivals in the DRAM market, according to a new Gartner Dataquest report. The next several quarters, however, will be more telling of the company's resiliency.

08/11/2003  August 9, 2003 - Exports of information technology products reached a record $4.88 billion in July, a 31% increase from one year ago, according to data from the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) and the Financial Times. The amount surpassed the previous monthly high of $4.74 billion in October 2000.

08/11/2003  August 9, 2003 - Suzhou He Jiang, a mainland Chinese chipmaker, is planning for volume production in September 2003 for its 8-in. wafers made with a 0.18-micron process, according to the Taiwan Economic News. The company, headed up by former UMC execs, projects a monthly capacity of 10,000 wafers/month.

08/11/2003  August 9, 2003 - FormFactor, Livermore, CA, has begun production of its 253 DUT wafer test system, a large-area array probe card aimed at 300mm DRAM manufacturers. The array can test 253 devices per touchdown, thanks to proprietary interconnect technology and design tools.

08/08/2003  August 6, 2003 - Worldwide chip sales hit $37.6 billion in 2Q, up 3.2% from 1Q03, and up 10.4% from 2Q02. Semiconductor sales totaled $12.54 billion in June, up 0.4% from $12.49 billion in revenues in May 2003, according to data from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). The May figures were revised downwards slightly from SIA's earlier estimates of $12.50 billion.

08/07/2003  August 5, 2003 - Advanced Power Technology, Bend, OR, has signed a deal to repackage and sell the SiC Zero Recovery Schottky diode die from Cree Inc., Durham, NC. APT will add its MOSFETs and IGBTs to the diodes in various combinations, including boost and buck configurations and power modules. Volume production is slated for 4Q03.

08/07/2003  The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded a $750,000 contract to NVE Corp. of Eden Prairie, Minn., for continued development of magnetic random access memory (MRAM), according to a news release.

08/01/2003  August 1, 2003 - Hynix Semiconductor, Seoul, Korea, says it will immediately ramp up production of its new 500MHz 256Mbit DDR SDRAM chips, built on the company's 0.13-micron processes. The memory devices are targeted at gamers, who tend to require higher frequencies and faster performance than typical users, and will be priced 10% to 20% above DDR400 chips.

07/18/2003  As tiny microphones built with small tech are getting ready to leap into mobile phones, hearing aids, personal digital assistants and MP3 players, there’s already some competition brewing. Akustica Inc. and Knowles Acoustics Inc., with Denmark’s SonionMEMS as a dark horse, are vying for market leadership in MEMS-made mikes.

07/17/2003  July 14, 2003 - Infineon Technologies, Munich, Germany, has signed a multi-year agreement with Singapore foundry Chartered Semiconductor to provide volume manufacturing for Infineon's OptiMOS and CoolMOS power chips. Infineon's OptiMOS chips will be manufactured in Chartered's Fab 2 plant, where it is scheduled to be qualified by the end of 2003, with volume production planned for 2004.

07/15/2003  July 14, 2003 - Sales of Japanese-made semiconductor manufacturing equipment are expected to rise 8.6% in fiscal 2003 to 931.3 billion yen ($7.9 billion), following a 2.9% drop in 2002, according to the Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan (SEAJ).

07/07/2003  July 7, 2003 - Waterloo, Ontario - Dalsa Corp., a foundry providing high-volume services in CMOS, high-voltage CMOS, CCD, and MEMS, has appointed Paul Van Bakel as its new CFO. He was formerly senior financial officer with Ledco Ld., and served in various financial positions with Dalsa from 1995 to 1999.

07/07/2003  When Greg Schmergel was growing up in the 1970s, nanotechnology was the stuff of science fiction. Now the 34-year-old co-founder and chief executive of Nantero Inc. believes carbon nanotubes deposited on silicon wafers eventually will replace every other form of semiconductor memory chip.

07/03/2003  July 3, 2003 - UMC, Hsinchu, Taiwan, and High Bandwidth Access Inc. (HBA), a developer of memory devices, have successfully prototyped HBA's high-speed IC based on the foundry's 90nm process. Volume production is expected later this year.