06/30/2008  (June 30, 2008) It was a month for names in the news as acquisitions and evolving business strategies inspired executive appointments and reorganization; industry organizations added members and directors, and books got published. Company announcements came in from JP Sercel Associates, TRUMPF, Dage Precision Industries, ECD, Jordan Valley, Rogers Corp., Formfactor, Unisem Group, Mentor Graphics, and Alchimer.

06/30/2008  by Dr. Paula Doe, Contributing Editor, Solid-State Technology
New technologies in MEMS etching is one of the hot topics at this year's SEMICON West (July 13-17, San Francisco). Growing demand for MEMS systems in consumer gear means higher volumes and price pressures, so device-makers are shrinking geometry die to cut costs -- and the finer processes needed on those smaller die may require new kinds of etching and cleaning processes.

06/27/2008  June 27, 2008 - Results presented earlier this year at a SEMATECH workshop indicate that photoresists being developed for use in EUV lithography are twice as sensitive as previously measured. But since exposure times haven't changed, that means the rest of EUV demo systems are only half as effective as they should be -- and the search is on to find out why.

06/27/2008  June 27, 2008 -- François Blateyron, R&D director at Digital Surf, received a 2008 Normalisation Trophy 2008 from the UNM, the French union for normalisation in the domain of mechanical engineering, for his work on surface metrology on French and ISO standards committees.

06/26/2008  June 26, 2008 -- Ecliptek Corporation, a supplier of frequency products, has announced significant reduction of lead times for the EMO family of programmable MEMS clock oscillators, on production quantities up to 50,000 units.

06/26/2008  June 26, 2008 -- Cambridge NanoTech, a supplier of Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) systems for research and industry, announced the shipment of its 100th ALD System to the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai, India.

06/25/2008  June 25, 2008 - Toppan Printing and IBM have forged a new development agreement extending their photomask process development work to the 22nm node, continuing a longstanding partnership -- but an industry insider tells WaferNEWS that there's a strategic agenda at work that could shake up the market.

06/25/2008  June 25, 2008 - SVTC Technologies has officially opened its Silicon Valley Photovoltaic Development Center in San Jose, with a new solar-cell manufacturing line, solar-module certification equipment, and a major silicon-wafer solar cell customer.

06/25/2008  June 25, 2008 - TSMC's 2Q08 revenue should be at the high end of guidance (roughly US$2.86-$2.92B, 0-2% vs. 1Q08), and 3Q is looking brighter, but for now the upswing isn't enough to increase profitability, according to an analysts from FBR Research.

06/25/2008  June 24, 2008 - The photoresist market managed to grow for the sixth straight year in 2007, driven by demand for 193nm deep ultraviolet and consumption in Asia, according to recent data from Gartner.

06/24/2008  by Debra Vogler, Senior Technology Editor, Solid State Technology
June 24, 2008 - Dow Corning Electronics aims to support development efforts toward high-volume manufacturing using e-beam lithography technology with its new XR-1541 spin-on resists, which it says are capable of defining features as small as 6nm.

06/23/2008  June 23, 2008 -- Debiotech and STMicroelectronics introduced first evaluation prototypes of a unique miniaturized insulin-delivery pump. The device can be mounted on a disposable skin patch to provide continuous insulin infusion.

06/23/2008  Toshiba and IBM say they have developed a higher-performance CMOS FET by increasing device-channel hole mobility through a modification of direct silicon bonding (DSB), a hybrid of (100) and (110) substrates, rather than new materials such as high-k and metal gates and new structures.

06/20/2008  June 20, 2008 -- Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), a university-research consortium for semiconductors and related technologies, joined with researchers at Stanford University to achieve CMOS-compatible working circuits on a wafer scale.

06/20/2008  June 19, 2008 - Researchers at Kobe U. and Yumex have prototyped a UV light source made without mercury and twice as efficient as existing mercury lamps, with a commercial product possibly ready in two years, according to the Nikkei Business Daily.

06/20/2008  June 19, 2008 - Spansion says it is extending its plan to hand off manufacturing and technology work to external partners in order to focus its capital investments on accelerating development of leading-edge MirrorBit flash memory technology, other "value-added, high-margin solutions," and its newest SP1 300mm flash memory fab in Aizu-Wakamatsu, Japan.

06/20/2008  June 19, 2008 - Samsung Electronics and Siltronic AG have begun operations of their 300mm wafer-making JV in Singapore, Siltronic Samsung Wafer Pte. Ltd., 18 months after construction began and two years after its formation. Monthly capacity is targeted at 300,000 wafers/month by 2010, with an overall investment of $1B.

06/20/2008  June 19, 2008 - Toshiba says it has developed a new compact model for circuit design that improves gate density for 45nm CMOS technology by 2.6× that of 65nm process technology, better than the 2.0× expected with a node migration.

06/20/2008  June 19, 2008 - Toppan Printing and IBM have forged a new development agreement covering the final phase of 32nm photomask process development, and all phases of 22nm photomask process development. Work will start this month at IBM's photomask facility in Essex Junction, VT.

06/19/2008  June 19, 2008 -- SUSS MicroTec, a supplier of process and test solutions for the semiconductor industry, has been selected by u-ITC, Korea to provide the advanced wafer bonding equipment of SUSS for its MEMS foundry. U-ITC's Incheon facility will incorporate design, manufacture, assembly and test within one location for the growing fabless MEMS market.