09/06/2006  September 6, 2006 - Focus GmbH and two German universities, Bielefeld and Mainz, working on a European Commission-sponsored project to develop extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL) technologies, say they have build a photoemission electron microscope capable of measuring features as small as 20nm without destroying the sample, a key step in development of EUV infrastructure.

09/06/2006  September 6, 2006 - Nova Measuring Instruments, Rehovoth, Israel, is soliciting bids from approximately 100 companies to license six of its patents relating to use of a lithography tool with integrated metrology, and will even accept bids for outright ownership of the technology.

09/06/2006  September 6, 2006 - Nova Measuring Instruments, Rehovoth, Israel, is soliciting bids from approximately 100 companies to license six of its patents relating to use of a lithography tool with integrated metrology, and will even accept bids for outright ownership of the technology.

09/05/2006  A somewhat surprising consensus on future lithography came out of a panel of experts at SEMICON West, with discussions of potential lithography solutions for the 32nm half-pitch node including major problems facing developers of EUV and high-index fluid immersion lithography using 193nm lasers. The message from panelists was clear -- the industry will have to learn how to live with dual-patterning at least for awhile, while toolmakers seek ways to boost throughput limits.

09/01/2006  Arthur del Prado has been sitting at the head table of the semiconductor industry since practically day one.

08/31/2006  August 30, 2006 - Dongbu Electronics says it is now using an optical proximity correction (OPC) tool developed in collaboration with Mentor Graphics for 90nm wafer processing, extending earlier work that resulted in a 0.13-micron system.

08/29/2006  As features approach the dimensions of 2nm strands of DNA, atomic layer deposition (ALD) appears to have great promise for the very thin, conformal film layers that will be essential. It's already being used by DRAM makers and displays, but work on gate stacks is slow due to process and materials integration. Potential uses of ALD, and how this will drive the future market were explored in a panel at SEMICON West.

08/29/2006  During SEMICON West 2006, a group of the industry's top senior technologists came together to discuss the limits and possibilities for semiconductor material development. Dealing with the atomic limits of semiconductors materials engineering, and delivering very small amounts of material, may also require fundamental changes in business models. How can suppliers support themselves under a paid-per-gram materials model, when critical amounts delivered are now sub-gram?

08/29/2006  August 29, 2006 - European research consortium IMEC and Albany Nanotech say they have received the first extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) lithography full-field alpha tools from Dutch equipment developer ASML, apparently within days of each other. EUV is considered the most likely candidate for the 32nm half-pitch node.

08/29/2006  ASML Holding NV announced that it shipped two extreme ultraviolet (EUV) alpha demo tools to customers. Both the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) of the State University of New York at Albany, N.Y., and the nanoelectronics research institute IMEC in Leuven, Belgium, have received full field EUV systems.

08/22/2006  During SEMICON West 2006, a group of the industry's top senior technologists came together to discuss the limits and possibilities for semiconductor material development. One of the main themes of the technical seminar and panel discussion, sponsored by DuPont Semiconductor Materials, involved the ramifications of a clear shift toward dealing with individual countable atoms, and what kind of endgame it leads to in terms of materials development.

08/17/2006  By W. Luo, D. Thon, Cadence Design Systems

With the move to more advanced semiconductor manufacturing technologies, semiconductor companies are finding that modifications to physical design data meant to improve yield can seriously impact integrated circuit (IC) performance and functionality. As a result, IC design houses are focusing growing attention on manufacturing effects at the earliest possible stages of IC design....

08/16/2006  August 16, 2006 - Semiconductor design software provider Synopsys Inc., Mountain View, CA, has officially announced its acquisition of Munich-based simulation software developer Sigma-C Software AG in an all-cash transaction worth $20.5 million.

08/16/2006  Synopsys Inc., a maker of semiconductor design software, announced that it has completed the acquisition of SIGMA-C Software AG, a Munich-based company providing simulation software that allows semiconductor manufacturers and their suppliers to develop and optimize process sequences for optical lithography, e-beam lithography and next-generation lithography technologies.

08/15/2006  General observations from this year's IEEE Lithography Workshop suggest that immersion lithography may take a little longer to move into mass production than its champions would like, and the path to the 32nm half-pitch node is also not clear. Still, the pursuit of Moore's Law continues on many fronts, such as finding ways to "cheat" the "laws" of optical physics, or using organic self-assembly techniques to augment optical lithography.

08/09/2006  August 9, 2006 - JMAR Technologies Inc., San Diego, CA, has received an additional $3.1 million from the US Naval Air Systems Command to continue developing sub-100nm feature x-ray masks and next generation nanolithography, for use in fabricating high-speed chalcogenide random-access memory.

08/09/2006  JMAR Technologies Inc. announced it received a $3.1 million award by Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR). This is the latest increment to be added to JMAR's current contract, valued at $17.5 million, to continue development of sub-100nm feature x-ray masks and next generation nanolithography.

08/08/2006  August 8, 2006 - Brion Technologies and Dainippon Printing have signed a joint development program to combine their technologies into a system that can simulate and verify photomask pattern data prior to the printing of the wafer.

08/08/2006  New Way Air Bearings, Aston, PA, has created a new "vacuum chamber stage" demo system which could have application in lithography, ion implant, mask-writing, and metrology processes requiring high precision in deep vacuum. Essentially, instead of putting a precision stage into a vacuum, the vacuum is put into the precision stage -- so the chamber volume is little more than the size of the wafer, and all mechanical linkages are outside the chamber.

08/04/2006  August 4, 2006 - Brion Technologies says it is expanding its management roster following "considerable" growth over the past year, to help support work with partners spanning design to manufacturing and wafer metrology.