04/08/2008  Apr. 8, 2008 - Weakened consumer spending -- not just in the US, but now apparently a global trend -- and signs that major buyers are slashing orders have caused analyst firm iSuppli to reduce its outlook for the NAND flash sector in 2008 by a full two-thirds. The firm now projects global NAD flash memory revenues rising 9% this year to $13.9B -- instead of an anticipated 29% rise to $17.9B, essentially removing $4B from the market.

04/08/2008  by Ed Korczynski, Senior Technical Editor, Solid State Technology
April 8, 2008 - Carbon nanotubes are the only viable (excuse the pun) new materials being developed to replace copper as the electrical interconnects for future ICs -- there are no known room-temperature superconductors, and optical interconnects require slow and expensive lasers and detectors. The theory and practice of growing CNTs was thoroughly reviewed at this spring's Materials Research Society (MRS) meeting.

04/08/2008  by Brian Dance, European Contributing Editor, Solid State Technology
Ian Burnett, past chairman of JEMI UK, tells WaferNEWS European correspondent Brian Dance what was successful about the just-completed MEDEA+ R&D programs, and how the new programs dubbed CATRENE will force the R&D community to relate expenditures to tangible benefits for society -- and "become the blueprint for government supported R&D not only throughout Europe but at a global level."

04/08/2008  by Tom Cheyney, Senior Contributing Editor, Small Times
Electron-beam direct write, nanoimprint lithography (NIL), and other potentially disruptive semiconductor nanopatterning technologies drew strong attendance and elicited spirited discussion during the SPIE Advanced Lithography conference, as Small Times' Tom Cheyney reports.

04/08/2008  SUSS MicroTec AG announced the first installation of its PM300WLR, said to be the world's first dedicated 300-mm wafer-level reliability (WLR) test system, at a leading Japanese semiconductor device manufacturer. According to the company, it will be used for testing the reliability of current and next-generation devices.

04/04/2008  Henkel Corp. announced the aquisition of Ablestik and Emerson & Cuming, the adhesives group of National Starch, for approximately $6 billion. The companies will become part of Henkel's adhesives group, bringing in die attach, board-level interconnect, and related materials, along with intellectual property (IP) and a global manufacturing base. FULL STORY.

04/03/2008  by Ed Korczynski, Senior Technical Editor, Solid State Technology
April 3, 2008 - The annual Materials Research Society spring meeting in San Francisco (Mar. 24-28) showcased over 40 technical sessions running in parallel, with >10 sessions of interest to the semiconductor manufacturing industry at any given time, including theories and results for new IC memory cells, extensions of CMOS logic and doping technologies, and future quantum-dots and nano-rods.

04/03/2008  by Debra Vogler, Senior Technical Editor, Solid State Technology
April 3, 2008 - JSR Microelectronics tells WaferNEWS about its new "freezing material" targeting brightfield applications (i.e., line first double-patterning (DP) processes), and why logic and some memory applications should be a good fit.

04/01/2008  The AVIA 355-23-250 from Coherent, Inc. delivers over 8 watts of 355-nm output at repetition rates of 250 kHz and higher. The combination of high average power and high pulse repetition rate translates directly into high process throughput with minimal silicon microcracking, reportedly achieving high-speed IC die singulation with high yields.

04/01/2008  The global semiconductor materials market grew 14% in 2007 and is forecasted to grow over 11% in 2008 according to the latest materials forecast from SEMI. While the semiconductor industry grew 3% in 2007 to reach the $256B published by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), the global semiconductor materials market grew 14% in 2007 to reach a record $42 billion.

04/01/2008  Two recent announcements regarding semiconductor photomasks are good news for the industry, with one being a contamination-related breakthrough.

04/01/2008  I love to sit in airports and imagine what people are like outside of travel. For instance, a fellow just walked by with fur-lined ear flaps on his camo hat and flip flops on his feet.

04/01/2008  A Cost-effective Solution
As high-volume MEMS production applications become a reality, device manufacturers are requiring low cost-of-ownership (COO) through high-yield at the wafer level and high overall equipment uptime. Several industrialized proprietary solutions have been developed to reach best performances.

04/01/2008  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has appointed Janet Woodcock, M.D., as director of the agency’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.

03/31/2008  March 31, 2008 -- /HAYWARD, CA/ -- TouchMark, a division of Delphon Industries, announces that it has met the strict requirements for ISO compliance and has been awarded ISO 9001:2000 certification for its precision pad printing services.

03/31/2008  March 31 -- /PRNewswire/ -- EN HAROD, ISRAEL -- Ricor Cryogenic & Vacuum Systems, a manufacturer of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, today announces the acquisition of InnerSense Ltd.

03/28/2008  Mar. 28, 2008 - Hynix plans to produce 54nm-based DRAM chips this year on schedule, saying this will "reduce the technology gap with Samsung," according to the company's CEO, quoted by the Korea Times. Hynix is currently expected to start 54nm-based DRAM production in 3Q08, vs. Samsung's 56nm possibly starting in 2Q08.

03/28/2008  by Bob Haavind, Editorial Director, Solid State Technology
A presentation by RIT engineers at this year's SPIE Advanced Lithography conference suggested the intriguing possibility of utilizing contrast differences for the TE/TM modes of exposure light to enable double patterning with frequency doubling imaging -- a technique that might provide a single-exposure alternative to double exposure/double patterning schemes at sub-45nm nodes.

03/27/2008  Mar. 27, 2008 - The latest casualty in the memory sector slump appears to be Hynix, which is about to shave more than a quarter off its planned 2008 investments in 2008, with late-year investments now cast in doubt, according to local reports.

03/26/2008  ; SMART Modular Technologies Inc. (SMART) has announced it has added test during burn-in (TDBI) to its enterprise class memory (ECM) testing process. SMART's new TDBI procedure applies functional patterns, temperature, and voltage for screening or eliminating marginal DRAM devices, which can cause time and stress dependent failures. Without this level of burn-in, these flaws could result in early lifetime failures for the memory device.