07/03/2003  July 3, 2003 - Worldwide sales of semiconductors totaled $12.50 billion in May, up 2.0% from $12.26 million in revenues in April 2003 and a 9.9% increase from May 2002 revenue of $11.38 billion, according to data from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). The total revenue is the highest in four months. The April figures were revised upwards from SIA's earlier estimates of $12.14 billion, which would have been essentially flat growth from March to April.

07/01/2003 

07/01/2003  As chip and microelectronics industry organizations scale back forecasts for industries already struggling to reduce costs and boost sales, Asia—China specifically—is continually being selected as the land of manufacturing opportunity, much to the chagrin of a U.S. Senator and presidential candidate.

06/27/2003  June 26, 2003 - Recent activity by DRAM companies to rev up advanced chipmaking production could signal an upswing in the DRAM market, according to a recent Dow Jones report.

06/24/2003  June 24, 2003 - Elpida Memory says it has secured $425 million in funding to expand production at its 300mm wafer fab in Hiroshima, Japan.

06/24/2003  June 24, 2003 - San Jose, CA - Prices for CMOS wafers were essentially unchanged from Q1 to Q2 of this year, according to a new study from the Fabless Semiconductor Association (FSA). The "2003 Q2 Wafer Pricing Survey" gauged the average price paid per wafer by 114 fabless companies and integrated device manufacturers (IDMs).

06/23/2003  June 23, 2003 - Winbond Electronics Corp. announced plans to build a new 12-in wafer plant in central Taiwan.

06/23/2003  June 23, 2003 - Powerchip Semiconductor Corp., a Taiwan-based DRAM chipmaker, has priced a US $90 million, five-year, zero-coupon overseas convertible bond.

06/23/2003  June 23, 2003 - San Jose, CA - Altera Corp. has launched a new family of low-cost mask-programmed devices.

06/18/2003  By James A. Cunningham, Consultant, Saratoga, California

Early failures at the vias are severely limiting current density rules in today's copper dual-damascene interconnect system. Recent work shows that if the barrier at the base of the vias were removed or made substantially thinner, or if interface diffusion rates were brought ... MORE

06/18/2003  Creating customized chips for specific purposes is time-consuming and expensive. Mass-producing chips can bring the cost down, but only when there is a broad demand for a specific type. Researchers at Micralyne, with the help of the Canadian government, think they have the answer to the problem.

06/16/2003  June 13, 2003 - Toshiba Corp. says it has developed new memory cell technology that will let chipmakers build DRAM system-on-chip (SOC) devices on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrates, which will help reduce power consumption and increase chip efficiency.

06/02/2003  May 30, 2003 - San Jose, CA - Worldwide sales of semiconductors totaled $12.1 billion in April, 2003, sequentially unchanged from the $12.1 billion in revenue reported in March of 2003, and a 9.7% increase from April 2002 revenue of $11.3 billion, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) reported today.

05/15/2003  Without nanotechnology, Moore's Law – computing power doubling every 18 months – will expire in 10 to 15 years. Even if it doesn’t, the cost of building a new chip fabrication plant could reach $50 billion by 2010. So, HP, IBM and others are hard at work building nanotransistors to keep the law in effect.

05/10/2003  Ken Gabriel, co-founder of the MEMS Industry Group, is taking at least a year off from his job as a Carnegie Mellon University professor to focus on Akustica, a MEMS-based startup specializing in acoustic technology he helped develop in CMU's lab. "There's only so much you can do within a university environment."

05/08/2003  May 8, 2003 - Taipei, Taiwan - ProMOS Technologies Inc. has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for a technology transfer with Japan's chipmaker Elpida Memory Inc.

05/07/2003 

05/05/2003  May 5, 2003 - Santa Cruz, CA - New data from The Quarterly Spot Report on Semiconductor Fab Projects, from Strategic Marketing Associates (SMA), indicates some 36 new fab projects will likely get underway by 2Q04. Fab projects include expansions, upgrades, additional fab lines, and new construction. Another 24 fabs will begin production during that time.

05/05/2003  Applied MEMS Inc. of Houston will manufacture its MEMS Si-Flex accelerometer for Refraction Technology Inc., a maker of seismic recording systems for earthquake monitoring, according to a news release.

04/25/2003  April 25, 2003-- Seoul, Korea -- Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. said today it planned to invest $500 million to upgrade its chip plant in Texas, looking to stay ahead of its rivals in the face of a prolonged slump in global chip prices.