02/26/2007  Brion Technologies is unveiling its second-generation system, Tachyon 2.0, at this week's SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference (Feb. 26, San Jose, CA). Still using Xilinx FPGAs (current generation) to achieve hardware acceleration, the company claims that a single Tachyon 2.0 system rack can replace the production capacity of four of the first generation racks.

02/26/2007  The announced merger of Blaze DFM and Aprio Technologies establishes an entity ready to claim the mantle of tops in "electrical DFM (eDFM)," in a highly fragmented DFM market with many companies positioning for leadership, according to execs announcing the deal. "We believe that there is room for one eDFM company that stands by itself...and we are going to be that company," stated Jacob Jacobsson, currently president/CEO of Blaze DFM.

02/26/2007  February 26, 2007 - Dai Nippon Printing Co. Ltd. (DNP) and Takumi Technology Corp. say they are developing an automated criticality-aware photomask inspection system to help reduce manufacturing cost and turnaround times of advanced photomasks. The product, currently in beta phase with an unnamed semiconductor manufacturer, is expected to be ready by March 2008 for worldwide deployment to DNP's customers as a service, at no extra cost.

02/26/2007  For the emerging flexible thin-film, organic, and printed electronics markets to flourish, most industry professionals agree that roll-to-roll (R2R) processing must be implemented on the factory floor. But how will manufacturing will be leveraged into successful, scaleable R2R approaches? Contributing Editor Tom Cheyney reports.

02/23/2007  February 23, 2007 - KLA-Tencor says the new version of its PROLITH litho optimization product, PROLITH 10, enables users to accurately predict lithography process windows for integrated circuit (IC) designs down to 32nm.

02/21/2007  February 21, 2007 - Staking their claim to the mantle of tops in "electrical DFM," Blaze DFM and Aprio Technologies have announced a merger that they say will create "the industry's only comprehensive electrical DFM solution."

02/20/2007  The proliferation of DFM start-ups has set the stage for a plethora of announcements in the months leading up to the SPIE Microlithography Conference. In this three-part series, WaferNEWS interviews companies that are trying to make their mark on the DFM landscape. This week we look at a company with technology that predicts, during the design phase, how ideal GDS shapes will print as contours in silicon: Clear Shape Technologies.

02/13/2007  Among presentations at SEMI Europe's Industry Strategy Symposium (ISS) in Z

02/08/2007  February 8, 2007 - Japan's Nikon Corp. has invested about 2.3 billion yen (US $19 million) to start producing glass substrates for liquid-crystal display (LCD) photomasks, according to a Reuters report.

02/06/2007  Just when the debate over transitioning to a new, 450mm wafer size was thought to be on ice for the foreseeable future, pronouncements at the recent SEMI Industry Strategy Symposium (ISS) in Half Moon Bay, CA, indicate that the controversy is as contentious as ever among four polarized groups. "We're about as divisive as a theological unification meeting," quipped VLSI Research CEO Dan Hutcheson.

02/06/2007  Obducat launched Sindre™, its high volume manufacturing system for Nanoimprint Lithography (NIL) to an invited audience numbering more than 200 attendees.

02/06/2007  Seiko Epson Corp. (Epson), has purchased a MA200 Compact Mask Aligner from SUSS MicroTec, a supplier of precision manufacturing and test systems, to support Epson's Wafer Level Chip Scale Packaging (W-CSP) production. SUSS reports that after a careful evaluation of competitive systems, Epson decided on SUSS' MA200Compact Aligner because it demonstrated excellent throughput and a submicron overlay and alignment accuracy.

02/02/2007  February 2, 2007 - Macronix International Co. Ltd. enjoyed five-year highs in profit margins and earnings last year due in large part to "swarming" orders from Nintendo for Mask ROM chips and improved costs for flash-memory production, and another boost in 2H07 will require significant additional capacity investments, according to the Taiwan Economic News.

02/01/2007  January 31, 2007 -- /PRNewswire/ -- OYAMA, Japan -- Gigaphoton Inc., a major lithography light source manufacturer for the global semiconductor industry, announced today that it has completed construction of a new building at its headquarters campus.

02/01/2007  When it comes to next-generation lithography, the semiconductor industry may be doing a double take-and that could mean double duty for contamination control.

02/01/2007  News snippets from the world of contamination control.

01/30/2007  After attending a demo at Intel HQ the day before the big announcement, SST Senior Technical Editor Mark Levenson thinks achieving first production as scheduled in 2007 would have been a significant technological milestone by itself -- but getting the first design, first mask set, and first silicon all working properly was stunning.

01/29/2007  January 29, 2007 - Extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) and 193nm immersion lithography will be a primary focus of SEMATECH's 2007 Knowledge Series seminars in the upcoming year, the group said today in a statement. Other areas will include materials to enhance transistor and backend development, and methods to improve manufacturing efficiency and yield.

01/29/2007  January 29, 2007 - Touting "a significant breakthrough in transistor technology," Intel Corp. says it has progressed its 45nm process technology from a SRAM test chip unveiled in Jan. 2006 into a working 45nm transistor -- devices that incorporate a hafnium-based high-k dielectric material and a new combination of metals for the transistor gate electrode. The new "Penryn" transistor will start shipping in volume by year's end on various systems, including those with Microsoft Vista OS.

01/25/2007  January 25, 2007 - The semiconductor lithography market expanded at nearly twice the rate of the rest of the equipment industry in 2006 to top $6.7 billion, finally eclipsing the $6.0 billion mark achieved back in 2000, according to a report from The Information Network.