03/25/2008  ; SEMI has reported that worldwide sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment totaled $42.77 B in 2007, representing a year-over-year increase of 6%. The data is available in the Worldwide Semiconductor Equipment Market Statistics (SEMS) Report, now available from SEMI.

03/25/2008  by Bob Haavind, Editorial Director, Solid State Technology
Problems with complex circuit patterns using alternating phase shift masks for low k₁ lithography led Intel to experiment with using trillions of pixels for imaging. A number of papers at this year's SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference described the techniques developed to successfully do the critical first metallization layer (M1) on a microprocessor using pixelated phase-shift masks.

03/25/2008  Mar. 25, 2008 - Chip test firm King Yuan Electronics Co. (KYEC) is spinning off its memory testing business as an individual company in order to narrow the parent company's focus on logic chip testing operations, according to local reports.

03/25/2008  Mar. 25, 2008 - Hynix Semiconductor and Korean fabless firm Fidelix have signed a deal centering on the firm's mobile DRAM and PSRAM, and Hynix will take a 10% stake in the company, in a deal that helps Hynix diversify its portfolio and better utilize its 200mm facilities, according to reports.

03/25/2008  Mar. 25, 2008 - ATMI and Ovonyx say they have agreed to develop chemical vapor deposition (CVD) precursor materials and processes for use in high-volume manufacturing of phase change memory ("PCM") products based on Ovonyx's PCM technology.

03/25/2008  Mar. 25, 2008 - Worldwide sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment increased about 5.7% in 2007, almost entirely due to a spending splurge by Taiwan firms and to a lesser extent Korea, and underpinned by extensive memory investments and the continued ramp of 300mm wafer manufacturing, according to the latest data from SEMI.

03/24/2008  by Katherine Derbyshire, Contributing Editor, Solid State Technology
Traditionally, achieving high resolution with negative imaging has been difficult. Research presented by Fujifilm Electronic Materials at this year's SPIE Advanced Lithography conference showed how to tune the resist imaging threshold to clear "dark" and "bright" regions, and ultimately double the pitch frequency and thus the density of lines and spaces.

03/24/2008  March 20, 2008 -- /ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL/ -- Several new seminar topics will be offered to contamination control professionals at ESTECH 2008, the Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technology (IEST) 54th annual technical meeting and exposition.

03/20/2008  Mar. 20, 2008 - An unexpectedly soft memory market in 4Q07 has caused analyst firm iSuppli to trim about $2B off its totals for the full year, pushing overall annual growth down to 3.3% vs. a preliminary forecast of 4.1% in November.

03/20/2008  by Ed Korczynski, Senior Technical Editor, Solid State Technology
In controlling the manufacturing processes used for advanced nanoscale IC, the aspects of metrology once ignored as "just noise" are now essential signals that must be controlled. Where to draw the line, and just how close is "close," are some of the challenges in ensuring that data streams become productive information for fabs, as discussed in sessions and interviews around this year's SPIE.

03/19/2008  Mar. 19, 2008 - Spansion says it has achieved manufacturing efficiencies in its plants in the US and Japan to the extent that it expects to reduce outsourced work by ~$50M/quarter in 1H08 vs. 2H07.

03/19/2008  Mar. 19, 2008 - Toshiba has slashed its FY08 profits forecast by 30% (to ¥125B/US $1.28B), citing the exit of its HD DVD business -- but also surprising weakness in NAND flash pricing.

03/19/2008  Mar. 19, 2008 - Chinese flagship foundry SMIC is spreading the focus of its wafer fabs across different parts of China, with those in the northeast and northwest to be allocated for solar business, according to comments by CEO Richard Chang, reported by Digitimes.

03/19/2008  by Katherine Derbyshire, Contributing Editor, Solid State Technology
Conferences like the recent SPIE focus on the leading edge (e.g., EUV, double patterning, immersion lithography), yet process technologies remain commercially important long after the leading edge has moved on. Case in point: KrF-based litho, currently used in >30% of 65nm DRAMs and poised to increase substantially. Here's what resist suppliers like Fujifilm Electronic Materials are doing to support this trend.

03/19/2008  Mar. 19, 2008 - Demand for semiconductor manufacturing equipment continues to improve with a couple of notable bright spots, though the market is still showing softness and lower growth than a year ago, according to the latest monthly data from SEMI.

03/18/2008  Mar. 18, 2008 - Taiwan's Winbond Electronics Corp. says it has finalized the spinoff of its logic IC business, to be a wholly owned subsidiary called Nuvoton Corp., finalizing efforts announced last fall to refocus on the company's main memory biz.

03/18/2008  Whether the acronym stands for micro via package or most valuable package, it looks like Shellcase MVP, introduced yesterday by Tessera Technologies, will answer to both. This recent addition to the SHELLCASE family is reportedly one of the industry's first applications of through silicon via (TSV) technologies and supports 3D die-stacking of the image sensor with other ICs.

03/18/2008  Mar. 18, 2008 - Elpida Memory and Taiwan's United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) are expanding their partnership to target Japanese foundry customers, combining Elpida's 300mm fab capacity with UMC's IP and logic technologies. The deal gives UMC inroads into Japanese foundry customers, while Elpida gets to utilize excess DRAM production capacity.

03/18/2008  Mar. 18, 2008 - Regional news reports suggest that Japan's Elpida Memory is working with China's Hejian Technology to build a $2B 300mm/30,000WPM capacity DRAM fab, with half of the funds to be raised by the Suzhou government, much like a similar fab proposal earlier this year with SMIC.

03/18/2008  ; After being appointed CEO of Alchimer SA, Steve Lerner immediately predicted the demise of vapor deposition processes for depositing nanoscale films in through silicon vias (TSVs) within a year. Steve Lerner is a technologist with 29 years' experience in semiconductor development and manufacturing. He founded advanced packaging and device companies Alpha Szenszor, GigSys, and CS2, and has held executive positions at Amkor, Swire, and AME.