11/13/2008  Despite beating analysts' expectations for its fiscal year-end quarter, semiconductor equipment bellwether Applied Materials says it will cut costs with 1800 layoffs (12% of its workforce) in the coming fiscal year. Added: Comments from top exec Mike Splinter about consolidation and solar biz, and takeaways from two industry analysts who called during the teleconference Q&A.

11/07/2008  November 7, 2008: The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued a Federal Register notice regarding carbon nanotubes (CNTs), in what may be a sign the agency intends to flex its muscles more than rely on voluntary industry efforts.

11/06/2008  Next-Generation Factory (NGF) concepts under the International SEMATECH Manufacturing Initiative (ISMI) call for new standards and more accessible tool operating data so that chipmakers and tool suppliers can collaborate on improving tool utilization and productivity. Many presentations at the recent ISMI Symposium on Manufacturing Effectiveness probed different aspects of this emerging collaboration.

11/04/2008  November 4, 2008: Carl Zeiss SMT, a global provider of electron- and ion-beam imaging and analysis equipment, was honored recently with a prestigious R&D 100 Award for one of the 100 most technologically significant new products in 2008.

11/03/2008  November 3, 2008: NeoPhotonics has been named the 4th ranked firm in Deloitte's "Technology Fast 50" for Silicon Valley, a ranking of the 50 fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, and life sciences companies in the region based on revenue growth over five years from 2003-2007.

11/01/2008  How can smaller operations make existing facilities fit their budgets and their processes with renovations and upgrades?

10/29/2008  Time flies when you're having fun, or when you're getting a start-up off the ground. From the introduction of an enabling technology, through several rounds of funding, award of a grant, four product launches incorporating said technology, the construction and grand opening of a manufacturing facility, RoHS compliance, and ongoing plans for more, the past year has been peppered with notable events for Nextreme Thermal Solutions.

10/24/2008  Oct. 24 2008: NaturalNano and Oxford Performance Materials (OPM) have signed an exclusive joint development and supply agreement to develop products, applications, and markets for the combination of OPM's OXPEKK and NaturalNano's Pleximer technology.

10/22/2008  October 22, 2008: The development of concepts, technologies and devices in nanophotonics during the next few years is envisaged in a new Emerging Nanophotonics Roadmap, released within the framework of the Photonics21 strategic research agenda and promoted by the EU Network of Excellence on nanophotonics (PhOREMOST), composed by 34 partners and over 300 researchers.

10/16/2008  October 16, 2008: Samsung Electronics is demonstrating the world's first carbon nanotube-based color active matrix electrophoretic display (EPD) e-paper, codeveloped with Unidym Inc., at this week's International Meeting on Information Display (iMiD) in Korea.

10/13/2008  By V. Gektin, M. Stern, Sun Microsystems; L. Larson, D. Bhagwagar, J. Marin, Dow Corning Corp. K.Nakayoshi , Dow Corning Toray Co., Ltd.
As power levels and heat generation increase in high-performance CPUs and other semiconductor devices, the thermal performance of commonly used packaging components is becoming a limiting factor. A silver-filled silicone material specifically for TIM 1 applications (the die/lid interface) was designed to meet this challenge.

10/13/2008  By Paul A. Magill, Ph.D., Nextreme Thermal Solutions, Inc.
The electronics industry is moving to 3D packaging structures which will shorten the electrical path length, thereby allowing for higher transmission speeds. As this clears the way for faster processors, it also means that thermal management solutions for these 3D structures will need to be developed.

10/10/2008  October 10, 2008: Nanosurf AG has appointed RL Artal Co. LLC in Budapest as its official agent for Hungary, and Anamet SRO in Prague and Modra, as its distributor for the Czech Republic and Slovakia, to extend the global distribution network for its microscopes.

10/10/2008  October 10, 2008: The race for the best "gecko foot" dry adhesive got a new competitor this week with a stronger and more practical material conjured by a team of researchers from four US institutions.

10/09/2008  October 9, 2008: A researcher at Arizona State U.'s Biodesign Institute is using cells as factories to make DNA based nanostructures inside a living cell. The results were published in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

10/08/2008  Semiconductor capital equipment spending had been expected to be lousy through 2008, but the upswing would start sometime in 2009. No longer -- Gartner now expects capex to slide even further this year and will drop another 13% in 2009, thanks to a full-on collapse in memory investments and economic pressures on consumer spending habits.

10/08/2008  October 7, 2008: Micromem Applied Sensor Technologies Inc. (MAST), a wholly owned US subsidiary of Micromem Technologies, has established a corporate office in New York City, part of the parent company's strategic plan to focus on magnetic sensor opportunities independent of the magnetic random access memory (MRAM) market.

10/03/2008  October 3, 2008: Michelson Diagnostics Ltd. (MDL) says it is broadening the commercial application of its 'multibeam' optical coherence tomography (OCT) technology into markets outside its core target of cancer diagnosis, such as industrial metrology, product inspection, tissue engineering, and developmental biology.

10/01/2008  SEMI's Rich Salsman talks with SST about the just-announced acquisition of nonprofit trade association Surplus Equipment Consortium Network (SEC/N), and their common goasl to address needs in the secondary semiconductor equipment markets, such as new standards for liability and support.

09/29/2008  September 29, 2008: Norman, OK-based SouthWest NanoTechnologies Inc. (SWeNT) has dedicated a new 18,000-square-foot, $3.9 million facility to increase output of single-wall carbon nanotubes.