12/07/2011 

KLA-Tencor Corporation (NASDAQ: KLAC) added to its SensArray portfolio of advanced wireless temperature monitoring wafers. The products use time-based, in-situ temperature monitoring to register process-environment effects on production wafers.

12/05/2011 

Applied Materials, Inc. debuted its defect review scanning electron microscope (DR-SEM) Applied SEMVision G5 system to image and analyze 20nm yield-limiting defects in a production environment without manual intervention.

11/30/2011 

Under new CEO Ajit Monocha's realignment plan, GLOBALFOUNDRIES named new CFO, CTO, and customer engineering and quality leaders. The CTO position is a new one at the semiconductor foundry. The moves are meant to separate technology strategy from technology development.

11/29/2011 

Dr. John Chen, VP of technology and foundry operations at Nvidia, and Thomas Jefferson, ISMI's 450mm project manager, are among the updated speaking roster of ConFab 2012, which will address the economics of semiconductor manufacturing and associated industries (LEDs, MEMS, displays).

11/18/2011 

Citing a change in the microscope customer market over the past decade, Carl Zeiss launchEd Carl Zeiss Microscopy. 2,500 employees of MicroImaging und Nano Technology Systems now form the new business group in the Carl Zeiss Group.

11/18/2011 

"The recent period

11/18/2011 

Intermolecular Inc. (Nasdaq:IMI) priced its initial public offering of 9,650,000 shares of common stock at a public offering price of $10.00 per share.

11/18/2011 

ICs manufactured at 65nm nodes and smaller introduce new design-specific and feature-sensitive failure mechanisms, with systematic yield issues even more challenging to diagnose and overcome. SMIC and Mentor Graphics cover how to use scan diagnosis for better semiconductor yields.

11/17/2011 

DCG Systems introduced the OPTIFIB Viper system for circuit edit at the 22nm node. It uses a new coaxial photon-ion column to provide spot sizes 50% smaller than those of the flagship OptiFIB-IV.

11/03/2011 

Avantor Performance Materials and SSMC Inc. compare the use of a semi-aqueous post-etch ash residue remover with an industry-standard HA-based residue removal chemistry. The semi-aqueous-based product was shown to reduce COO for manufacturing of low- and high-voltage logic devices, and increase yields.

11/03/2011 

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) elected Freescale Semiconductor CEO Rich Beyer as its 2012 chairman. This will be the SIA's 35th year.

11/02/2011 

IEST-RP-CC042.1: Sizing and Counting of Submicrometer Liquid-Borne Particles Using Optical Discrete-Particle Counters, is now available from the Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technology. It dispels a common misconception among semiconductor, FPD, and data storage manufacturing users.

11/01/2011 

Asylum Research introduced the Variable Field Module2 (VFM2) for the MFP-3D AFM. It allows researchers to apply magnetic fields in conductive AFM experiments, magnetic force microscopy, and other applications.

10/20/2011 

Entegris, Inc. (Nasdaq:ENTG) opened a manufacturing and research facility in Hsinchu City, Taiwan, for advanced filtration and materials handling components for the semiconductor industry and other high-tech industries.

10/17/2011 

ERS uncrated the ERS AirCool 3 wafer thermal test system with modular options and easy integration into all major wafer prober systems.

10/13/2011 

SEMI honored Dr. Tibor Pavelka (Semilab) with the European SEMI Award; Heinz Kundert (SEMI Europe) with the IC Industry Award for Excellence; and Christian Prischmann (UIbrich) with the SEMI Europe Standards Leadership Award.

10/10/2011 

Imec and tool vendor ASML have signed a new 5-year deal to continue collaboration on lithography technologies, both immersion and EUV, as well as associated components -- including new sensors to help calibrate lens alignment and dose.

10/06/2011 

Light source supplier Cymer Inc. (Nasdaq:CYMI) launched SmartPulse, which monitors light source parameters at the wafer, collecting data for a suite of reporting and analysis tools.

10/04/2011 

Tamar Technology shipped its first fully automated WaferScan system to a major semiconductor fab. The system performs TSV etch depth, deep trench depth, wafer thickness, photo-resist thickness, and hole diameter metrology.

10/04/2011 

Bryan Rice, SEMATECH's newly appointed director of strategic initiatives, tells SST what his new job entails: what he sees as his biggest challenges, which areas will keep SEMATECH's main attention (hint: the "once and future king" of resources), and what new areas are being explored.