03/24/2010 

Showa Denko KK (SDK) has completed a new 400 tons/year plant for its new carbon nanotubes -- what it claims is currently the world's largest CNT factory -- with commercial production slated to begin next month after a trial run.

03/19/2010 

The chip industry keeps chugging along the recovery road, with another "dramatic" month compared to the depths of a year ago -- and one key statistic is at an eye-popping seven-year high, according to the latest monthly figures from SEMI.

03/19/2010 

No surprise that 2H09 was a comeback period for semiconductor equipment and materials suppliers, but new "final" numbers from SEMI suggest some late-season changes in behavior in some regions, and ultimately sets the stage for a better 2010.

03/17/2010 

Substantial amounts of electrostatic discharge (ESD) damage are not only possible, but probable in semiconductor die attach operations, leading to substantial yield losses. Roger Peirce and Brad Williford from Simco illustrate seven distinct mechanisms in typical die attach operations that cause electrostatic discharge (ESD) damage to chips being handled.

03/15/2010 

Honeywell (NYSE: HON) Electronic Materials debuted a printable thermal management material designed to help manage the high heat produced by increasingly powerful semiconductors in portable computing devices such as laptops and netbooks.

03/08/2010 

Worldwide semiconductor capital equipment spending is projected to surpass $29.4 billion in 2010, a 76.1% increase from 2009 spending of $16.7 billion, according to Gartner Inc. Gartner cites a dramatic recovery in semiconductor orders for the equipment order surge.

03/03/2010 

Intel has given its nod to two dozen key partners from its roster of thousands of supply-chain contributors as the 2009 winners of its annual supply chain awards -- and within the listings is a interesting nugget about the chipmaker's lithography strategy.

03/02/2010 

Ian Clark from Mentor Graphics explains how the company's new FloTherm Web-based software helps reduce the time spent on thermal characterization and design, illustrated by examples for both moving air and ambient thermal resistance.

03/02/2010 

At a IEEE Bay Area Nanotechnology meeting on February 16, Peter Hartwell revealed new efforts at Hewlett Packard that could change the game for distributed sensor networks (aka "smart dust") and how they will impact human interaction, just as the Internet revolution did.

03/01/2010 

Given the advantages and technical feasibility of through-silicon vias (TSV), the major focus now is on the manufacturability and integration of all the different building blocks for TSVs and 3D interconnects. EV Group's Thorsten Matthias et al. review advances in lithography, thin wafer processing, and wafer bonding, and the integration of all these process steps.

02/23/2010 

Demand for semiconductor manufacturing equipment continues to surge as the industry emerges from its slumber, with some measurements showing strength not seen in several years, according to the latest monthly data from SEMI and SEAJ.

02/16/2010 

The VectorGuard stencil portfolio from DEK now includes the double layer Platinum stencil, a stencil technology that is said to offer performance benefits over conventional screens. VectorGuard Double Layer Platinum stencils suit semiconductor applications and component manufacture, solar cell manufacture, low-temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) manufacture, as well as other production challenges requiring fine line or mixed feature sizes.

02/16/2010 

This case study, a partner piece to Robin Bornoff/Mentor Graphics' discussion of fluid dynamics analysis for IC package design, examines how IDT used CFD thermal analysis in a packaging decision for a recent product launch.

02/16/2010 

Instead of time-consuming hardware tests for thermal analysis, package designers are increasingly turning to software-based device modeling and CFD analysis, which eliminates fabrication of trial components, thermal dice, and other fixturing to preview the impact of design decisions and changes, explains Robin Bornoff from Mentor Graphics.

02/04/2010 

Researchers at Rice U. have figured out a way to transfer patterns of carbon nanotubes from a substrate to any other surface in a single dry room-temperature step, and then reuse the substrate with intact catalyst particles to grow more.

02/04/2010 

Researchers at the U. of Michigan have developed a new biosensor that uses carbon nanotubes (CNT) and paper to quickly and inexpensively detect algae in drinking water.

01/26/2010 

Wire bond inspection system maker Viscom introduced software tools for its very high resolution (VHR) camera module, which has the ability to provide exact measurements of balls and wedges. With this technology, 25-µm gold thin-wire wedge sizes can be measured with a standard deviation of 1 µm. In addition to inspecting qualitative characteristics of wire bonds, balls and wedges statistical evaluation and trend analysis of critical geometric dimensions can also be performed in the production process.

01/26/2010 

On behalf of the World Gold Council (WGC), SEMI conducted a survey titled “Semiconductor Industry Opinions Concerning the Selection of Bonding Wire Material.” The survey was intended to gauge the semiconductor industry’s use of copper bonding wire versus gold for packaging applications. The WGC is a commercially driven organization focused on creating demand for gold. While 41% of semiconductor companies surveyed use copper bonding wire, none use it in the majority of their products. However, the majority of respondents will consider copper bonding wire in their new products.

01/25/2010 

Demand for semiconductor capital equipment continued to increase in the final month of 2009, and with the key book-to-bill ratio now six straight months above parity suggests growth still lies ahead, according to the latest industry data.

01/22/2010 

The Surface Mount Technology Association (SMTA) will host two 90-minute online sessions with Bob Willis, ASKbobwillis.com, on package-on-package (PoP) applications and implementation. The Webtorials will take place February 4 and February 11, 2010 from 1:00 to 2:30 pm EST.