06/09/2006  June 9, 2006 - Korean fabless chip firm Tomato LSI and IP licensing firm Clairvoyante say they have produced the world's smallest single-chip IC driver for amorphous silicon TFT VGA display panels, in response to demand for high-resolution panels used in handheld mobile devices.

06/07/2006  Akustica announced a collaboration with Ricoh Company Ltd. aimed at a new camera module for optimized audio and video performance in Universal Serial Bus audio/video applications.

05/12/2006  Uni-Pixel Inc. announced that it has entered into an agreement with the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to collaborate on the development and commercialization of Uni-Pixel's TMOS display technology.

05/04/2006  May 4, 2006 - Applied Materials Inc., Santa Clara, CA, has agreed to acquire Longmont, CO-based Applied Films Corp. for approximately $464 million in stock, giving the semiconductor equipment giant complementary thin-film deposition technologies for its flat-panel display systems as well as inroads into the fast-growing solar market.

04/05/2006 

03/03/2006  Shanghai, China — FPD China 2006, to take place March 28–30, 2006, at the Shanghai Mart in Shanghai, China, targets the global supply chain for the flat panel display (FPD) industry in China, and will showcase product and technology exhibits, business and technical seminars, and industry standards meetings.

02/23/2006  February 23, 2006 - Applications for thin-film electronics applications will generate $15.5 billion in revenue in the year 2011, more than half of which will be used for emerging markets, according to a new report from NanoMarkets.

12/16/2005 

11/28/2005  November 28, 2005 -- Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Seoul, Korea, has reportedly manufactured the largest flexible thin-film transistor liquid-crystal display (TFT-LCD) that shows high enough resolution for digital television.

11/14/2005  November 14, 2005 - Dainippon Ink & Chemicals Inc. plans to start producing materials for thin-film transistor (TFT) LCDs in early 2006, The Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported. The company intends on spending 500 million yen (US$4.2 million ) to procure production equipment for its Saitama Prefecture plant and then to start supplying materials for computer monitors and eventually LCD televisions by April 2006

11/03/2005  November 3, 2005 - Fuji Photo Film Co. will start mass production of electromagnetic interference films for plasma display television sets in early 2006 with initial film production for 100,000 units of PDP TVs per month, senior official Masaaki Otani said in an interview with the Jiji Press.

07/19/2005  July 19, 2005 - Cymer Inc. and Carl Zeiss SMT AG announced the creation of TCZ GmbH, a joint venture (60% Cyber, 40% Carl Zeiss) focused on production equipment for flat panel displays (FPDs). Based on their combined laser and optics expertise, the companies have developed a production tool to improve low temperature polysilicon (LTPS) processes for thin film transistor (TFT) displays.

07/15/2005  July 15, 2005 - Sharp Corp. said yesterday that it has developed a thin-film-transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) panel that can simultaneously display two different images depending on whether it is viewed from the right or from the left, according to various foreign news reports.

07/05/2005  July 5, 2005 - Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. plans to reduce the number of domestic workers engaged in semiconductor development and production by 1000, or 6%, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported Sunday, citing company sources.

06/28/2005 

06/27/2005  June 27, 2005 - Royal Philips Electronics has agreed to sell its monitor and entry-level flat-screen television business to TPV Technology Ltd. TPV will take over Philips' existing original equipment manufacturing (OEM) monitor business and produce monitors and entry-level flat TV products that Philips will continue to market and sell under its own brand, according to the Taiwan Economic News.

06/07/2005  June 7, 2005-Novellus Systems Inc. and global technology research consortium SEMATECH are partnering to develop and evaluate low-k dielectric films with k values <2.2, and explore the limits of ultra low-k integration. As part of the joint development agreement, SEMATECH will purchase a VECTOR PECVD system for depositing ultra low-k films and a ultraviolet thermal processing (UVTP) system for post-deposition film curing.

05/17/2005  May 16, 2005 - CVD Equipment Corp. has signed a contract with First Nano Inc., of Carpinteria, CA, to purchase certain assets of its nanotechnology process development and equipment business. First Nano develops solutions for single and multiwall nanotube and nanowire synthesis and manufactures CVD process equipment suitable for the synthesis of a variety of carbon nanotubes, 1-D nanostructures, and nanomaterials.

05/10/2005 

05/09/2005  May 9, 2005 - Photronics has announced its strategy to drive advanced photomask R&D through a network of global corporate R&D centers. Photronics said its photomask R&D center in Austin, TX, and the recently launched Photronics-PKL R&D center in Cheon-an, Choong-nam, Korea, are working to develop next generation fabrication processes to manufacture high performance IC products down through the 45nm node.