02/06/2001  San Jose, California--Numerical Technologies, Inc. and Belgian consortium IMEC, a leading European independent research center focused on the development and licensing of microelectronics, information, and communications technologies, have formed a partnership to address subwavelength challenges to expedite the manufacture of 0.13-micron and smaller ICs.

01/26/2001  Kyoto, Japan--Seeing market opportunity in all those new venture design shops suddenly starting to pop up in Japan, Rohm Co. Ltd. will offer prototyping services at a new Venture LSI Design Assist Center.

01/26/2001  Munich, Germany--Infineon Technologies AG has extended its collaboration with IMEC, a Leuven, Belgium-based R&D center, in the fields of microelectronics technology and design- and system-oriented research.

01/24/2001  Hayward, California--Etec Systems, Inc., an Applied Materials company and supplier of semiconductor mask patterning systems, today announced that its Mask Patterning Product Group has been awarded the International Standards Organization (ISO) 9001 certification.

01/23/2001  Corning, New York--Corning Inc. announced today that it has reached an agreement to acquire 100% of the stock of Tropel Corp., a Fairport, NY-based world leader in precision optics and metrology instruments for the semiconductor industry, in a transaction valued at approximately $190 million, based on the closing price of Corning common stock on January 22, 2001.

01/23/2001  Newport, U.K.--Trikon Technologies, Inc. has signed a commercial supply agreement with ASM International N.V., of Bilthoven, The Netherlands, in which Trikon will supply ASM with sputter etch modules and, in turn, ASM will supply Trikon with atomic layer chemical vapor deposition (ALCVD) modules for integration onto Trikon's cluster tools.

01/15/2001  Sweden--Micronic Laser Systems AB, a company at the forefront of semiconductor and display laser pattern generators for the production of photomasks to the worldwide electronic industries, today announced an order from Hoya Corp. for its new Micronic Omega6600 laser pattern generation tool.

01/09/2001  Corning, New York--Corning Inc. today announced that it will invest more than $30 million in 2001 to expand production of fluoride crystals in its Canton, NY manufacturing facility. This investment is expected to allow the company to more than double its capacity in fluoride crystals, which are used to make optical microlithography lenses.

01/04/2001  Berkeley, California--Today's chips, built from more than a dozen layers of material etched with electronic circuits, each need a photomask to project the circuit pattern--an expensive and time-consuming process. An effort to eliminate photomasks from the lithography process has led researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) to investigate ion beam technology and a dot-matrix lithography technique as a possible solution.

01/03/2001  NOGALES, AZ -- Disposable protective apparel maker Alpha Pro Tech, Ltd has entered into a new distribution alliance with Patterson Dental Company.

12/20/2000  Champaign, Illinois--University of Illinois (UI) researchers have fabricated silicon thin-film transistors--critical components of numerous sensor and display technologies--using soft lithographic block-printing techniques and polymer inks in place of photolithography.

12/20/2000  New Tripoli, Pennsylvania--The semiconductor industry's rush to build 300mm fabs for first silicon in 2002 will spur sales of 300mm processing tools to $11 billion in 2001, according to a recently published report, 'The Global Market for Equipment and Materials in IC Manufacturing,' by The Information Network, a New Tripoli, Pennsylvania-based market research company.

12/19/2000  Hsinchu, Taiwan--United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC), a leader in the semiconductor foundry industry, and Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. (DNP), a leader in photomask manufacturing, have announced the finalization of a multi-year agreement for UMC to secure advanced mask services from DNP. The agreement also includes a joint specification optimization effort for masks at the 0.10-micron generation, generally considered to be the next major milestone in semiconductor process technologies.

12/14/2000  San Jose, California--International SEMATECH's Advanced Technology Development Facility recently placed an order with Silicon Valley Group (SVG) for a Micrascan V, 193nm, very high numerical aperture step-and-scan lithography system to support development of 193nm technology for its member companies.

12/11/2000  Sweden--Micronic Laser Systems AB, a developer of semiconductor and display laser pattern generators for the production of photomasks to worldwide electronic industries, today announced that it has extended its partnership with Fraunhofer Institute for Microelectronic Circuits and Systems (IMS) to include all semiconductor direct write applications based on Micronic's use of the spatial light modulator (SLM) technology.

12/06/2000  Tokyo, Japan--ASML today introduced dual wafer stage technology for new i-line and deep ultraviolet (UV) imaging systems, extending the product offerings of its TWINSCAN 300mm technology platform. This dual wafer stage system optimizes the lithographic processing of 300mm wafers by parallel operation of two independent wafer stages, according to ASML.

11/29/2000  East Fishkill, New York--IBM, Infineon, and UMC recently announced that they have begun building chips with the most advanced 0.13-micron foundry process technology currently available.

11/14/2000  San Diego, California--Nov. 14, 2000--JMAR Technologies, Inc. recently reported that a series of technological advances in its Picosecond X-ray Light Source (PXS) program now qualify the company's semiconductor lithography product as the enabling technology for a faster, most cost-effective alternative to the direct-write, electron beam sources currently used to produce advanced, sub 0.13-micron gallium arsenide (GaAs) semiconductor ICs.

11/09/2000  Gaithersburg, Maryland--Nov. 9, 2000--The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) Advanced Technology Program (ATP) has awarded $13.7 million in funding for a project to develop advanced wafer inspection technology for next-generation lithography (NGL) applications at the 50-nm and 70-nm nodes.

11/07/2000  Veldhoven, The Netherlands--Nov. 7, 2000--ASML Lithography has developed a new 193nm Step & Scan lithography tool for high-volume production of semiconductor devices at the 100nm technology node.