06/03/2004 

06/01/2004  Extraction Systems Inc. (www.extractionsystemsinc.com), a provider of molecular contamination control and measurement products, recently doubled its manufacturing capacity at its headquarters here in anticipation of a market upswing and changes in the competitive landscape.

05/25/2004  Advanced Diamond was one of three small tech business plans to squeak into MIT’s famed $50K Entrepreneurship Competition this year, with its diamond-copper composite that acts as a coolant for microchip components. Other small-tech finalists were Active Spectrum, using MEMS to build a transceiver for wireless devices, and LumArray, with a nanoscale lithography technique that eliminates costly design masks.

05/19/2004  U.S. officials are developing "best practices" that businesses may want to follow when handling nanomaterials. Given a shortage of research on the health effects of new engineered nanomaterials, officials from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) are developing the guidelines and hope to release them within a year.

05/13/2004  May 13, 2004 -- DuPont Photomasks Inc. has begun commercial production at its advanced photomask production facility in Dresden, Germany. The new facility will support semiconductor devices with design rules of 65nm and below.

05/11/2004  May 10, 2004 -- The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has awarded Optical Research Associates, Pasadena, CA, a $1.7 million Advanced Technology Program award for the development of advanced lithography modeling algorithms, reported the company.

05/07/2004  May 7, 2004 - Taiwanese foundry UMC wants to boost its $850 million capex budget for its Singapore operations, but that depends upon the speed and availability of obtaining new equipment.

05/05/2004  May 5, 2004 - A proposed $36 million JV to develop nanoimprint lithography has received approval by the National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) Advanced Technology Program.

04/20/2004  April 20, 2004 - ASML, Veldhoven, The Netherlands, has taken the wraps off of its Twinscan XT:1400 lithography tool, used for 65nm volume production as well as development at the 45nm node.

04/13/2004  April 13, 2004 - TSMC has realigned its process technologies into two classes of "technology platforms" in order to add other features and services, and claims to have produced the industry's first fully-functional 65nm SRAM module.

04/12/2004  April 12, 2004 - Novellus Systems Inc., San Jose, CA, has acquired Angstron Systems Inc., Santa Clara, CA, a supplier of atomic layer deposition (ALD) technology, for an undisclosed amount.

04/01/2004  In what may be a sign of better times ahead, Nikon Precision Inc. (Belmont, Calif.) has announced it will build a worldwide training center aimed at meeting demand from English-speaking countries.

03/29/2004  March 29, 2004 - SEMATECH and the state of Texas have agreed to launch a five-year, $200 million project to accelerate the development of next-generation semiconductors, as well as support projects for nanotechnology and other related areas.

03/03/2004  NanoOpto Corp. and Nanonex Corp. have settled a legal dispute over intellectual property and other business issues.

03/01/2004  Less than a month into 2004, semiconductor industry representatives have decided that the end of the decade should be all wet.

02/25/2004  February 25, 2004 - Intel Corp., Santa Clara, CA, has agreed to make an equity investment in Media Lario International SA, an Italian developer of optical components for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography.

02/19/2004  February 19, 2004 - Nikon Corp. and Tokyo Electron Ltd. are accelerating their co-development of 193nm immersion lithography tools with a sooner-than-expected mass production start date of late 2H05.

02/19/2004  Silicon-germanium BiCMOS has been relegated to the status of a niche technology at Texas Instruments Inc., now that the Dallas-based company has demonstrated a single-chip CMOS concept for next-generation radio circuits used in cellular phones and other portable wireless applications.

02/18/2004  When Congress passed the $3.7 billion 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act last year, hopes blossomed among Oregon's academics. Among the bill's sponsors was their own senator, Democrat Ron Wyden. When the money begins to flow in 2005, Oregon will be ready. Researchers are moving from basic research to product tests in microtechnology-based energy, chemical and biological systems, along with nanomaterials and nanosurfaces.

02/11/2004  February 11, 2004 - A device created at MIT makes the most precise measurement device of all: the Nanoruler, with "ticks" a few hundred-billionths of a meter apart.