11/28/2001  What can the semiconductor industry learn from the petrochemical folks? A lot, when it comes to the evolution of advanced process control (APC). In the early days of APC in the petrochem industry, process and instrumentation technologies were considered totally unrelated issues by operating companies.

11/15/2001  November 15, 2001 - Santa Clara, CA - Applied Materials, a provider of epitaxial (epi) deposition technology to the semiconductor industry, has installed its Epi Centura systems at Analog Devices' fabs in MA, and CA, where they are being used for next-generation bipolar device production using silicon (Si) and silicon germanium (SiGe) technologies.

09/28/2001  September 28, 2001 - Flanders, NJ - Rudolph Technologies and Therma-Wave, Inc., today announced that they have reached a settlement in their Patent Interference proceeding.

08/30/2001  Japan's latest government-funded industry research initiative for 50nm generation technology plans to start by designing and developing its own new semiconductor production tools. Japanese press reports said Intel researchers would also participate, but Intel sources could not confirm this before press time.

08/09/2001  August 9, 2001 - Brookfield, CT - Photronics Inc. is breaking ground for a 13,000-square-foot addition to its existing 40,000-square-foot manufacturing operation in Brookfield, Connecticut.

05/31/2001  May 31, 2001 - Milpitas, CA - Nanometrics Korea, a subsidiary of Nanometrics Inc., supplier of advanced integrated and standalone metrology equipment, announced the opening of its new support and manufacturing facility in Pyungtaek City, Korea.

04/13/2001  April 13, 2001 - San Jose, CA - KLA-Tencor Corp. has signed an agreement to purchase Phase Metrics, a top supplier of inspection/certification technologies to the data storage industry.

03/14/2001  March 14, 2001--Sunnyvale, California--Thomas West Inc. (TWI) today announced a major capital expansion and upgrade of its applications lab and manufacturing facilities as part of an ongoing investment to provide its customers with the most advanced CMP materials and technology for semiconductor manufacturing. The increased capacity and expansion is in direct response to increased customer demand for the company's advanced CMP pads.

03/07/2001  March 7, 2001--San Jose, California--KLA-Tencor Corp. has introduced Precice, a production-worthy in-situ film thickness and end-point control system for copper CMP.

03/01/2001  March 1, 2001--Tomerdingen, Germany--Boin GmbH, a metrology software manufacturer for the semiconductor industry, has released a new software development kit for metrology equipment manufacturers.

02/22/2001  February 22, 2001--San Jose, California--KLA-Tencor Corp. today introduced the Archer 10, the latest in its suite of optical metrology overlay tools. Incorporating several significant improvements in automation, throughput, productivity, and precision over previous generation systems, the Archer 10 is one of the industry's most competitive cost-of-ownership overlay solutions for 300mm manufacturing at the sub-0.13-micron node.

02/13/2001  February 12, 2001--Tomerdingen, Germany--Boin GmbH, a metrology software manufacturer for the semiconductor industry, has entered into an OEM agreement with TePla AG, a manufacturer of metrology tools and low pressure plasma systems. TePla will use Boin's WAFERMAP metrology software on its TWIN SC measurement tool to support the visualization and interpretation of measurement results.

02/12/2001  FEB. 12 Jupiter, Florida--Photronics, Inc., a leading photomask supplier, announced today that it has signed a multi-system purchase agreement with Toshiba Machine Co., Ltd. for its EBM-3500 vector scanning electron beam photomask lithography system.

01/23/2001  Corning, New York--Corning Inc. announced today that it has reached an agreement to acquire 100% of the stock of Tropel Corp., a Fairport, NY-based world leader in precision optics and metrology instruments for the semiconductor industry, in a transaction valued at approximately $190 million, based on the closing price of Corning common stock on January 22, 2001.

12/11/2000  With the first production 300mm fabs scheduled for ramp up next year, chipmakers want tools to arrive at the fab site automation-friendly, though full supplier compliance to new 300mm software standards is unclear, say participants of a recent workshop on 300mm software requirements for automated manufacturing in Austin, TX.

09/07/2000  FREMONT, Calif. - Sept. 7, 2000 - Therma-Wave, Inc., a manufacturer of process control metrology systems used in the manufacture of semiconductors, today reported that orders for the first two months of the second quarter of fiscal year 2001 have already exceeded the record $61.9 million mark of the first quarter ended June 30, 2000.

09/01/2000  With the trend toward smaller packages and tighter tolerances, the role of total package inspection is becoming more vital to the assurance of final product quality. At the same time, the drive for cost reduction and flexibility dictates that all inspection requirements be satisfied by a single, integrated, high-throughput inspection platform.

08/18/2000  AUSTIN, Texas--Aug. 18, 2000--Research consortium International SEMATECH today announced the launch of a Metrology/Yield Management Tool Initiative to develop and evaluate new measurement technologies for advanced semiconductor manufacturing processes.

08/02/2000  FREMONT, Calif.--August 1, 2000--Designed to expand its process control metrology systems business, Therma-Wave unveiled new products for use in metrology for metal films, critical dimension metrology, and a line of integrated metrology systems.

07/27/2000  FREMONT, Calif.--July 25, 2000--Therma-Wave Inc. will develop and supply advanced metrology solutions that integrate with Applied Materials' process systems and modules.