10/11/2005 

09/26/2005  September 26, 2005 - Straatum Processware Ltd., a Dublin, Ireland-based supplier of real-time fault detection and classification (FDC) software for semiconductor manufacturing, has opened a global sales office in San Jose, CA.

09/26/2005  The Foresight Nanotech Institute, a public interest think tank with a 20-year history at the forefront of nanotechnology theory, wants to become involved in its more immediate uses as well. Scott Mize was brought on as president a year ago to help execute that transition.

09/16/2005 

09/13/2005  Migdal Ha'emek, Israel — Camtek Ltd. is introducing three new Falcon wafer AOI system models at SEMICON Taiwan, currently happening from September 12–14 in Taipei. The new models include Falcon 800 for 3-D metrology of gold- and solder-bumped wafers, Falcon 500PD for post-dicing wafer inspection, and Falcon 500 for general wafer inspection before or after test. The Falcon 800 model employs CTS, Camtek's own triangulation height measurement technology — key to its 3-D performance.

09/07/2005 

08/17/2005  August 17, 2005 - Engineers at Sematech's Advanced Materials Research Center (AMRC), Austin, TX, are investigating a nanoscale approach to metrology that will allow them to examine new semiconductor structures at the atomic level, and so prepare the way for next-generation electronics.

08/11/2005 

07/12/2005  Providers of nanotechnology equipment are retooling their plans in the face of lower demand from semiconductor companies.

07/06/2005  July 6, 2005 - Soluris and CEA-Leti have announced that they have engaged a joint development program (JDP) involving Soluris' Yosemite SP-1000 CD-SEM to help characterize the sub-45nm logic technologies at CEA-Leti's new Minatec research facility in Grenoble, France.

07/05/2005  By M. Yeh, S.-P. Fang, B.-J. Tsau, C.C. Huang, B. Lin, United Microelectronic Corp.; S. Fu, J. Chen, R. Freed, T. Dziura, M. Slessor, KLA-Tencor Corp.

This work evaluates the capability of a spectroscopic ellipsometry-based profile technology as a new metrology tool to monitor polysilicon gate processes at 130nm and 90nm nodes. This study proves that this method can consistently flag different profile excursions of polysilicon gate.

06/29/2005  June 29, 2005 - Rudolph Technologies Inc. has signed a definitive merger agreement with August Technology Corp. The transaction has been unanimously approved by the board of directors of both companies, is subject to customary regulatory approvals and shareholder vote of each company, and is expected to close in the 4Q05.

06/28/2005 

05/31/2005  Veeco, a developer of atomic force microscopy (AFM) products, announced last week that it signed a joint development program with CEA Leti, an applied research electronics laboratory in Europe, and Team Nanotec, a fabricator of AFM probe tips.

05/24/2005  May 24, 2005 - Oraxion Diagnostics, a provider of advanced metrology systems, has named industry veterans Bang C. Nguyen as CEO and director and Jonathan M. Sabol as COO.

05/04/2005 

04/28/2005  (April 28, 2005) Herndon, Va. — The International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (iNEMI) announces that most of its OEM and EMS members strongly support unique part-number use for RoHS-compliant components, including Alcatel, Celestica, Cray Inc., Dell, Delphi, HP, Intel Corp., Jabil Circuit, Lucent Technologies, Microsoft, Plexus Corp., Sanmina-SCI Corp., Solectron Corp., StorageTek, and Sun Microsystems.

04/20/2005  Oregon's nanotechnology initiative appears to be holding steady even if one of its leading industrial supporters has faced a bumpy start this year. Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute (ONAMI), one of the state's signature research centers, is on the docket for more state and federal funding, and continues to win the support of its business and political leaders.

04/19/2005  April 19, 2005 - Sematech has announced its top technical challenges for 2006, continuing to underscore advanced gate stack, 193nm immersion and EUV lithography, mask infrastructure, and low-k dielectrics with process compatibility. Consortium leaders also placed planar bulk transistor scaling on the list for the first time.

04/15/2005