01/08/2009  As the global economic tide starts to recede, it exposes many high technology manufacturing challenges that were otherwise hidden. In the semiconductor industry, these challenges are often opportunities for innovation -- and the situation we face in lithography today is an excellent example.

01/07/2009  January 7, 2009: Liquidia Technologies Inc. and Abbott have entered into a collaboration and license agreement with to develop pattern-replication nanoparticles for delivering siRNA-based therapeutics.

01/06/2009  January 6, 2009: Scientists at the University of Glasgow have received around $700,000 to investigate ways of improving the quality of digital camera images through the manipulation of tiny particles.

01/05/2009  January 5, 2008: Using tiny gold particles and infrared light, MIT researchers have developed a drug-delivery system using gold nanoparticles that allows multiple drugs to be released in a controlled fashion. Such a system could one day be used to provide more control when battling diseases commonly treated with more than one drug.

01/01/2009  Spending on equipping of frontend semiconductor fabs is expected to plummet 31% in 2008 to $26 billion, and recent announcements suggest another 30%-40% decline in 2009, resulting in the lowest spending level over the past 10 years. This article tracks the changing landscape of semiconductor fab spending, and what the future holds for 2009 and beyond.

01/01/2009  For the past 50 years, the thermal management industry has offered only heatsinks, fans, and thermal grease as methods for electronics thermal management.

12/23/2008  December 23, 2008: Noting that the cell toxicity assay of carbon nanotubes can not be conducted by traditional methods employed in common toxicology, researchers in China are calling for more study of issues including chemical modification and realistic exposure, characterization, and physical/chemical mechanisms of CNTs' cycotoxicity.

12/22/2008  December 22, 2008: Research done by scientists in Italy and Switzerland has shown that carbon nanotubes may be the ideal "smart" brain material. Their results are a promising step forward in the search to find ways to "bypass" faulty brain wiring.

12/20/2008  December 19, 2008: A new Nano-Imaging Center has opened on USC's University Park Campus for scientists and engineers probing the mysteries of nanoscale materials and systems.

12/17/2008  December 17, 2008: University of Southern California grad students have created a clear, colorless disk that bends and twists like a playing card, with a lattice of more than 20,000 nanotube transistors capable of high-performance electronics printed upon it using a potentially inexpensive low-temperature process.

12/17/2008  December 17, 2008: University of Pittsburgh researchers have developed the first natural, nontoxic method for biodegrading carbon nanotubes, a finding that could help diminish the environmental and health concerns that mar the otherwise bright prospects of the super-strong materials commonly used in products, from electronics to plastics.

12/17/2008  December 17, 2008: Foresight Institute, a think tank and public interest organization focused on nanotechnology, awarded prizes to leaders in research in the field of nanotechnology whose work is moving our society toward the ultimate goal of atomically-precise manufacturing.

12/16/2008  December 16, 2008: A carbon nanotube-coated "smart yarn" that conducts electricity could be woven into soft fabrics that detect blood and monitor health, engineers at the University of Michigan have demonstrated.

12/16/2008  New memory concepts and the latest 32nm CMOS with metal gates and high-k dielectrics were highlights of the 2008 International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) in San Francisco, Dec. 15-17. A wide range of innovative device technology, including 3D wafer-level integration and a nanowire battery were also presented.

12/16/2008  Let's Hope They Eventually Come Back
By Jim Walker, Gartner/Dataquest
Even though we all like to hear "Merry Christmas" and "Happy New Year" during this holiday season, our worldwide financial meltdown has made it much less cheerful. The outlook for 2009 is very bleak for worldwide economies and, more specifically, the semiconductor industry.

12/15/2008  In an exclusive daily blog for SST, Chipworks' Dick James soaks in the first day of IEDM with dense presentations of 22nm CMOS presentations.

12/15/2008  December 15, 2008: MIT engineers have developed carbon nanotubes into sensors for cancer drugs and other DNA-damaging agents inside living cells. The sensors, made of carbon nanotubes wrapped in DNA, can detect chemotherapy drugs as well as environmental toxins and free radicals that damage DNA.

12/15/2008  December 15, 2008:Current techniques for synthesizing double-walled carbon nanotubes also produce unwanted single- and multi-walled nanotubes, but Northwestern researchers say they've solved this problem with a sorting method called "density gradient ultracentrifugation."

12/15/2008  Results of a study slated to be discussed by SEMATECH researchers at this week's IEDM highlight the importance of the process sequence on performance, variability, scaling, interface quality, and reliability for LaOx capped HfSiON/metal gate structures.

12/15/2008  brawling. This is encouraging. Laboratory technologies, like newborn babes, require the full attention of their owners. It isn't until the newcomers creep out of the lab to face their rivals that conflicts begin. By next December, some winners should be in production.