08/19/2008  The debate continues to rage over the economics of a 450mm wafer-size transition, but those actually working on developing the new wafers report significant and troubling problems in producing the bigger substrates to meet purity and smoothness demanded by 22nm-generation devices and beyond.

08/19/2008  August 19, 2008 -- NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has taken the first-ever image of a single particle of Mars' ubiquitous dust, using its atomic force microscope.

08/19/2008  Applied Materials' fiscal 3Q08 results were generally in line with expectations, with sales and profits dropping sharply during what CEO Mike Splinter called the "trough" of the industry's current downcycle. Here's a quick bullet-point summary of highlights from the company's quarterly conference call.

08/18/2008  Taiwan foundry TSMC says its board of directors has approved new capex expenditures for 200mm and 300mm capacity, and a new stock buyback program.

08/18/2008  IBM and joint development partners (AMD, Freescale, STMicroelectronics, Toshiba, CSNE in Albany, NY) say they have built a working static random-access memory (SRAM) using 22nm process technologies -- but details will have to wait until December's IEDM.

08/18/2008  The chrome material that has blocked the light on binary masks for a generation may finally have outlived its usefulness, with interest now turning to opaque OMOG for 32nm generation and beyond photomask technology, explains Toppan Photomasks' Franklin Kalk, in an exclusive interview with SST.

08/18/2008  Worldwide silicon wafer demand area shipments had been sluggish in previous quarters, but picked back up in 2Q08 to typical seasonal levels, according to data from SEMI's Silicon Manufacturers Group (SMG).

08/18/2008  Using stencil, screen printing, and spin coating techniques, Henkel's Ablestik 8000 series, wafer backside coating (WBC) reportedly enables the deposition of die-attach materials to the wafer backside down to a thickness of 20 µm on wafers as thin as 100 20 µm and up to 300 mm in diameter. Unlike conventional dispensing methods, printing or spin coating materials onto the wafer is said to deliver a tightly controlled, high UPH for high-volume die attach adhesive deposition.

08/15/2008  August 15, 2008 -- Northwestern University nanoscientist Chad A. Mirkin has mass-produced the 2008 Summer Olympics logo -- 15,000 times in one square centimeter of space. Mirkin and his colleagues printed the logos, as well as an integrated gold circuit, using a new printing technique called Polymer Pen Lithography (PPL), that can write on three different length scales using only one device.

08/14/2008  August 14, 2008 -- Oxantium Ventures closed a B Series funding round with RF Nano Corporation, a developer of radio frequency devices from carbon nanotubes. Dr. Richard Wirt, a managing director at Oxantium, joins RF Nano's Board.

08/14/2008  August 13, 2008 -- Shocking Technologies, Inc. is preparing to ramp up commercial scale production by moving to a new 51,000 square foot facility in San Jose, California. The facility will house Shocking's nanotechnology research and development labs as well as manufacturing for its XStatic voltage switchable dielectric material.

08/14/2008  August 12, 2008 -- Silicon Genesis Corporation (SiGen) has signed a collaboration and equipment supply agreement with Renewable Energy Corporation (REC) where REC will evaluate thin-PV substrate samples made using SiGen's PolyMax "kerf-free" wafering process. REC will also collaborate with SiGen to develop and optimize high-volume manufacturing (HVM) equipment and develop silicon ingot shaping requirements.

08/07/2008  Researchers created a hemispherical "eye" camera using an array of single-crystalline silicon detectors and electronics in a stretchable, interconnected mesh, an achievement they say points the way toward advanced camera designs.

08/07/2008  Japan's Elpida Memory is moving ahead with a 300mm DRAM joint venture in China with a local venture capital group, a move that one analyst and Japanese paper seem to admire.

08/07/2008  STMicroelectronics, STATS ChipPAC, and Infineon Technologies AG have signed an agreement to jointly develop the next-generation of embedded wafer-level ball grid array (eWLB) technology, based on Infineon's first-generation technology, for use in manufacturing future-generation semiconductor packages.

08/06/2008  In a post-SEMICON West interview, Edward Charrier, VP/GM of KLA-Tencor's process control information division, described the latest improvements in Prolith, the company's venerable litho simulation tool.

08/06/2008  August 6, 2008 -- Carl Zeiss SMT made several new product announcements at the recent Microscopy and Microanalysis Meeting and Exhibition in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Among them are a new class of SEM, and an additional Argon ion beam column in its NVison 40 CrossBeam workstation.

08/05/2008  Despite a mild recovery in 2Q08, global DRAM makers are once again building inventories and pulling the rug out from prices, and the buildup will likely push out a full market recovery until the end of next year, according to a new warning by iSuppli.

08/05/2008  Amid suggestions from top foundry TSMC that macroeconomic factors are weighing on customer demand, one analyst firm is lowering its expectations for a weaker-than-seasonal second half of the year. And the plan to hike ASPs? Forget it, at least for now.

08/04/2008  A look at the top four global foundries' latest financials and outlooks suggests the market outlook for foundries heading into 2H08 and early 2009 is starting to weaken due to uncertainties and fluctuation concerning demand.