10/17/2011 

IHS and Chipworks share details from their preliminary teardowns of the Apple iPhone 4S. The device resembles an iPad/iPhone hybrid, and the 5-lens autofocus camera module is the first IHS has encountered in a smartphone.

10/17/2011 

The Philippino brothers behind BiTMICRO in Silicon Valley and its Philippine subsidiary BiTMICRO Networks International Inc. have created the Bruce Institute of Technology (BIT) microelectronics and storage system training institute for the Philippines.

10/17/2011 

Demand for NAND devices will grow more than 20% in 2011, while DRAM demand will decline by more than 1%. Other trends? 45nm and smaller nodes are increasing market share, says Semico.

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.

10/14/2011 

NeoPhotonics Corporation (NYSE:NPTN), photonic integrated circuit (PIC) modules and subsystems maker, completed the acquisition of privately held Santur Corporation, a designer and manufacturer of Indium Phosphide (InP) PIC products.

10/13/2011 

A deep dig inside ASML's 3Q11 results and execs' commentaries unearths insights into 4Q11 and 2012 projections, an updated EUV timeline, and some curious disconnect about the industry's 450mm readiness.

10/13/2011 

RASIRC debuted the Steamer Turbo for specialty applications in the semiconductor and photovoltaic industries, featuring integrated gas blending control.

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.

10/13/2011 

ATREG's Barnett Silver reports from SEMICON Europa, where the overall mood on the show floor is optimistic yet cautious, with hope for strong growth by mid-2012. Key themes include a slowdown in 200mm demand, an elite membership for 450mm, and keen interest in MEMS.

10/12/2011 

Edwards Limited expanded its iXH harsh process dry pump family with the iXH500H series of 500m³/h pumps optimized for flat panel display (FPD), solar, and advanced semiconductor processes requiring high gas flows and flexible pump temperature profiles.

10/12/2011 

While the market has currently softened, early-2011 momentum will carry the year's semiconductor silicon sales to a higher total than 2010, said Stanley T. Myers, president and CEO of SEMI, noting the figures are an industry record. Growth will continue at "modest levels" through 2013.

10/11/2011 

Heading to the AVS Symposium later this month (Oct. 30-Nov. 4) in Nashville, TN? We've scanned the program to pick out some of the sessions that are of interest.

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.

10/10/2011 

Imec says it has developed a f_T/f_MAX 245GHz/450GHz SiGe:C heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) device, useful for future high-volume millimeter-wave circuits in various applications.

10/10/2011 

Imec says it has built an integrated poly-SiGe-based piezoresistive pressure sensor on top of 0.13?m copper backend CMOS, the first such device directly fabricated above its readout circuit and the first poly-SiGe MEMS device of any kind processed on top of Cu-backend CMOS.

10/07/2011 

Singapore has launched the Manufacturing Productivity Technology Centre at A*STAR's Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology. GlobalFoundries signed a 5-year Manufacturing Productivity Enhancement master plan agreement with SIMTech, working on materials recycling, wafer transport, and more.

10/06/2011 

Analog semiconductors will buck the trend of contraction in the overall chip industry, growing 13.8% in 2011, 8.6% in 2012, then 12.8% in 2013.

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.

10/06/2011 

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Dan Shechtman, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel, for the discovery of quasicrystals.

10/05/2011 

Jan Willis from the eBeam Initiative summarizes the group's annual event at SPIE BACUS 2011, with presentations on both improving wafer quality and mask write times at the 20nm node. Other presentations dealt with EUV masks and a lack of funding support.