05/08/2012 

memsstar Limited, deposition and etch equipment supplier to the MEMS and semiconductor industries, named Mike Thompson as CEO.

05/07/2012 

III-V Lab, a joint lab of Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs France, Thales Research and Technology and CEA-Leti, provides an update one year into its 4 main research area projects. III-V lab combines compound semiconductor and silicon semiconductor technologies for applications in telecom, industrial control, environmental testing, defense, security, and space.

05/07/2012 

Elpida informally chose Micron to sponsor its restructuring, report severals sources. Micron reportedly will pay about USD1 billion more than it originally offered, investing another $1.25 billion to upgrade 2 fabs in Japan.

05/07/2012 

A leading, US-based IDM ordered about $5 million of front- and back-end semiconductor automatic optical inspection (AOI) tools from Camtek Ltd.

05/04/2012 

Texas Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:TXN, TI) hosted an Analyst Day this week to discuss and review key strategies and progress achieved over the past 15 years. Barclays Capital “heard few surprises” at TI's Analyst Day; its analysts maintain their view that TI is a “high-quality analog company” that raises some concerns that it is not able to benefit from its scale advantages, with a growth trajectory of only GDP-plus (i.e. in line with overall semiconductors). FBR Capital Markets analysts agree that “little new surfaced.”

05/04/2012 

The Heterogeneous Technology Alliance in Europe is focusing on high-performance organic electronic circuits through 2 projects: COSMIC to develop p- and n-type OTFTs for complementary logic, and POLARIC for shrinking critical dimensions of OTFTs.

05/04/2012 

Lux Research profiled 328 companies across 15 different emerging technology domains in Q1 2012. Of these, Lux Research selected its top 10, including a gallium-nitride (GaN) power device maker, printed electronics supplier, and others.

05/02/2012 

CEA-Leti has introduced the “LETI-3S” concept, for “Silicon Specialty Solutions.” The research is oriented to start-ups, component integrators, fabless or fablite chip companies, and equipment/consumable suppliers.

05/02/2012 

Global semiconductor sales hit $23.3 billion in March 2012, up 1.5% from February 2012 and down 7.9% from March 2011, reports the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA).

05/02/2012 

RF Micro Devices Inc. (Nasdaq GS:RFMD) expanded its gallium nitride (GaN) portfolio with rGaN-HV, optimized for high-voltage power devices in power conversion applications.

05/01/2012 

Solid State Technology and SEMI will present the 2012 Best of West product awards at SEMICON West 2012, July 10-12 in San Francisco. Best of West recognizes important product and technology developments in the microelectronics industries.

05/01/2012 

CEA will extend its collaboration with Arkema beyond photovoltaics into microelectronics and organic electronics, setting up two joint public-private research projects in CEA-Leti and CEA-Liten.

05/01/2012 

The Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA) appointed Dr. Leo Li, chairman, CEO and president of Spreadtrum Communications Inc., to its Board of Directors. Li is GSA’s first China-based executive to join the Board.

05/01/2012 

CVD Equipment completed the sale of its Ronkonkoma, NY, facility, where its Application Laboratory was located. This is part of CVD Equipment’s move to its recently purchased building in Central Islip, NY.

05/01/2012 

Crossing Automation Inc. formed a business unit around 450mm semiconductor wafer automation platforms. The company has a comprehensive line of 450mm wafer handling products currently shipping to fabs and tool makers.

05/01/2012 

Fujitsu Semiconductor will transfer ownership of its Iwate Plant, a semiconductor wafer fab in Iwate, Japan producing system LSI, microcontrollers, etc., to DENSO.

05/01/2012 

Nitronex was awarded a NASA Phase I SBIR to develop a highly efficient 20W X-band GaN power amplifier MMICs, for use in long range RF telecommunications. The company will deploy its GaN-on-Si technology.

04/30/2012 

Micron Technology Inc. and Hynix Semiconductor Inc. achieved strong NAND flash business globally in Q4 2011, thanks to solid manufacturing and pricing. The chipmakers gained market share on the NAND Flash industry leaders Samsung and Toshiba, and will continue to grow in 2012, reports IHS.

04/30/2012 

The global touch controller IC market is growing quickly, thanks to emerging natural user interfaces and touchscreens’ rapid adoption in consumer electronics. From 2011 to 2016, global touch controller revenue will grow from 0.4% of the total semiconductor industry to 1.65%.

04/30/2012 

Worldwide semiconductor revenues increased more than 3.7% year over year to $301 billion in 2011, according to the IDC Worldwide Semiconductor Applications Forecaster. IDC expects 2012 growth to be in the 6-7% range.