12/05/2007  December 5, 2007 - Semiconductor equipment sales this year are turning out slightly better than expected, according to SEMI's year-end forecast update, but the outlook for 2008 now indicates the equipment sector's first year in the red since 2005.

12/04/2007  Gerald Yin, CEO and co-founder of equipment startup Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. (AMEC), discusses his company's foray into thin-film deposition and etch tools for leading-edge IC manufacturing, and the business strategy behind forming as a global semiconductor OEM based in China.

12/03/2007  AlSiC (aluminum silicon carbide) is a metal-matrix composite suited for base plates material for insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBT) used in high-power traction, power control, hybrid electric vehicle power systems, and fly-by-wire applications.

12/03/2007  December 3, 2007 - Rohm and Haas and SKC Co. Ltd. have officially opened their joint venture to make advanced optical and functional films for flat-panel displays, three months after announcing their partnership. Meoung-Han Kim will lead the business, having most recently served as managing director of SKC's display division.

11/30/2007  By Debra Vogler, Senior Technical Editor

The tradition of the ISMI Manufacturing Symposium as an "in the trenches" conference, by and for the people doing the actual day-to-day work in the fabs, continued Oct. 24-25 in Austin, TX. Particular attention was given to topics on yield improvement/productivity methodologies, ESH, and sustainability. Specific talks included how to fix litho "hot spots," cleaning wafer chucks without DI water or solvents...

11/26/2007  November 26, 2007 - A pair of reports from Wall Street analysts suggest Taiwan foundry TSMC will begin production for some AMD microprocessors as soon as 1H08.

11/25/2007  November 9, 2007 -- LUDWIGSHAFEN, GERMANY -- After a construction period of around 15 months, the Electronic Materials Center Europe at BASF's Ludwigshafen site is now complete.

11/21/2007  SEMI today reported that worldwide semiconductor manufacturing equipment billings reached $11.13 B in 3Q07. The billings figure is one percent greater than 2Q07 and about one percent greater than the same quarter a year ago.

11/20/2007  The Body Worlds exhibit at The Tech Innovation Museum, where real cadavers are preserved to expose the makeup of the human body, provided a fitting backdrop to a half-day session on "Biomedical Materials, Devices, and Packaging" at IMAPS 2007, the International Microelectronics And Packaging Society's 40th annual international symposium on microelectronics.

11/20/2007  November 19, 2007 - The launch of Intel's new 45nm-based Penryn processors means more business from IC substrate makers with small volume production of new flip-chip substrate makers, reportedly causing several Asian firms to project a spike in business that isn't reflected in their capacity expansion plans.

11/20/2007  November 19, 2007 - China Sunergy Co. Ltd. says it has as ramped to mass production of selective emitter cells, and entered into various agreements to supply up to 25MW of solar cells to Canadian Solar in 2008.

11/17/2007  November 16, 2007 - A month after semiconductor equipment demand slid to some significant lows in several areas, data for the most recent month shows things haven't gotten any better, and in fact may be a little worse.

11/16/2007  ; Sonoscan's Silicon Valley applications laboratory (SSV) in Santa Clara, CA was selected recently to appear in an episode of HDNet's "Dan Rather Reports" dealing with the testing of composite materials. The episode, which premiered on September 18, is entitled "Plastic Planes" and is available for viewing or download at www.hd.net/danrather.html.

11/16/2007  ; North American-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted US$1.23B in orders in October 2007 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 0.83, according to the October 2007 Book-to-Bill Report published by SEMI.

11/15/2007  November 15, 2007 - Robert MacKnight, president of Mattson Technology since mid-2005 and COO since 2002, will retire at the end of March 2008, staying on for a transitional period as VP, the company announced. CEO David Dutton will take on the role of president, having held both roles from 2001-2005.

11/15/2007  ; Two companies have recently launched new LED packaging products. Philips Lumileds has launched its new cool-white LUXEON K2 with TFFC LED that is designed, binned and tested for standard operation at 1000 mA and can be driven at 1500 mA. In addition, LedEngin Inc. has announced its 10W, multiwavelength RGBA emitter, the LZ4-00MA10, which contains individually addressable dies in an 7mm square power LED package.

11/14/2007  What makes the photovoltaic solar cell industry so interesting and exciting is that the potential for growth is enormous, but realizing this opportunity is not straightforward. This is a competition between technologies, both within the PV alternatives and also from non-PV options. The way forward is also clouded by the significant involvement of politics, vested interests, and environmental lobby groups, where the "facts" may not always be what they seem.

11/14/2007  ; Fred Roozeboom, Ph.D., research fellow at NXP Semiconductors Research and a professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology, has agreed to join the EMC3D consortium and provide technical advice and guidance in support of the EMC3D effort to quickly bring the technology of through-silicon via (TSV) chip stacking to market.

11/14/2007  Actel Corp. has announced it is offering its low-power 5mW IGLOO field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) in a 4-mm package with a 0.4-mm ball pitch, reportedly the smallest package for any programmable logic device on the market.

11/07/2007  ElectroChemical Systems Inc. (ECSI), manufacturer of IKo Classic electroplating and electroforming tools for MEMS, nanostructures, and HDIs, says that its recent sales of FIBRotools equipment stem from flexibility, ease of use, and value. The company's recent installations include the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai, India; the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC; and MIT's Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Mass., among others.