10/22/2009 

Specialty TSV foundry Allvia is expanding its manufacturing capabilities away from high-cost Silicon Valley to a newly-purchased facility in Oregon, a site with its own chip-equipment pedigree.

10/21/2009 

Semiconductor tool orders in North America showed year-on-year growth for the first time in nearly two-and-a-half years, and demand continues to ramp in Japan -- more evidence that the industry is climbing out of the deep hole in which it's been mired.

10/20/2009 

Brooks Automation's S.E. Syssoev et. al. summarize development of a new cryopump design for type II gases that prevents wafer contamination by uncontrolled intermittent pressure bursts inside the chamber, and also increases capacity by 50%.

10/13/2009 

EDA vendor Mentor Graphics has acquired Israeli firm Valor Computerized Systems, a maker of PCB design software, in an $82M cash-and-stock deal planned to close in early 2010.

10/07/2009 

IQE plc has agreed to acquire UK compatriot NanoGaN, which offers processes and IP related to gallium nitride (GaN) materials and devices, in a deal worth up to £3.6M.

09/28/2009 

Süss MicroTec's Stojan Kanev tells SST/AP about the company's new addition to its toolset for 3D integration: a probe station targeting 300mm wafer-level 3D stacked structures.

09/24/2009 

A new report from Lux Research notes the market for "intermediate" nanomaterials -- those enabled by nanomaterials, such as coatings to display components --  will surge 61% annually to nearly $500B by 2015, but only a handful of companies are in position to ride that wave.

09/24/2009 

Indium Corp. has acquired processes, equipment, and "know-how" of nanomaterial developer Reactive NanoTechnologies for an undisclosed sum.

09/22/2009 

Indium Corporation acquired the processes, equipment, and know-how of Reactive NanoTechnologies Inc. (RNT), developer and manufacturer of NanoFoil. NanoFoil delivers precise, instantaneous heat energy for advanced joining applications. RNT developed the NanoBond joining process to simplify manufacturing and ensure the benefits of NanoFoil are maximized.

09/22/2009 

MIT researchers say carbon nanotubes formed into tiny springs can store as much energy, pound-for-pound, as lithium-ion batteries, and offer better durability and reliability.

09/21/2009 

Shifts among executive and organizational ranks at Applied Materials suggest new streamlining efforts, but also leave unanswered questions as to why. Here's the skinny on the two major moves out of the lot.

09/21/2009 

The latest numbers on North American and Japanese semiconductor equipment demand suggest continued growth and recovery, though analysts see a long climb back to normalcy.

09/15/2009 

Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology's Nanofab800 Agile system aims to influence the growth of nanostructures by delivering control of alignment and dimensions.

09/10/2009 

September 10, 2009:  A procedure using nanotubes encased within DNA is shown to eliminate cancer tumors but not healthy tissue, according to researchers from Wake Forest U's School of Medicine.

09/03/2009  September 2, 2009: A new Microelectronics Innovation Center is being formed at the Université de Sherbrooke in Bromont, Québec, to focus on 200mm MEMS and 3D wafer-level packaging, and other "advanced technologies associated with the assembly and packaging of silicon chips."

08/28/2009 

Debbie Forray and Ilya Furman, Henkel Corp., compare a self-filleting die attach paste to film-based adhesives. Semiconductor companies are seeking lower-cost die attach material solutions to replace the higher-cost, film-based adhesive materials used for certain applications. One such material is self-filleting die attach paste. 

08/28/2009 

Kwan-yu Lai, Micralyne, and Jeffrey G. Stark, Sensor Products, describe the use of color-coded pressure-indicating film to ensure uniform, correct pressure during wafer bonding. Wafers are bonded by applying precise combinations of physical pressure, temperature, and/or voltage. Pressure is measured as an average, assuming perfectly flat pressure plates.

08/28/2009  Fujipoly America released two non-silicone thermally conductive grease compounds. The polysynthetic-based thermal interface material (TIM) suits thin bond line applications that are also adverse to silicone contamination.

08/28/2009 

Extending its capabilities for placing solder spheres at high speed, DEK's DirEKt Ball Placement process now enables accurate solder sphere deposition for spheres as small as 200µm in diameter with pitches as tight as 300µm.

08/26/2009  August 25, 2009: The Nanoscale Science and Engineering Research Center for High-rate Nanomanufacturing, a joint venture pooling efforts from Northeastern, U. of Massachusetts/Lowell, and U. of New Hampshire, has received a five-year, $12.25M renewal grant from the National Science Foundation to continue its work with commercializing nanoscale scientific process.