10/30/2007  October 30, 2007 - Demand for NAND flash memory, battles in the MPU space, and pains of big customers' change in strategies have shuffled the rankings of top chip suppliers in 3Q07, just as predicted, according to data from IC Insights.

10/30/2007  October 30, 2007 - Air Products and its Taiwan subsidiary Air Products San Fu Co Ltd. have agreed to supply nitrogen and bulk gases for Taiwan DRAM producer Rexchip Semiconductor Corp., the Powerchip-Elpida memory JV. Financial details were not disclosed.

10/30/2007  People doing the actual day-to-day work in fabs gathered at last week's ISMI Manufacturing Symposium (Oct. 24-25, Austin, TX), addressing topics on yield improvement/productivity methodologies, ESH, and sustainability. Specific talks focus on how to fix litho "hot spots," cleaning wafer chucks without DI water or solvents, guidelines for detecting/preventing electrostatic discharge (ESD) events, and why process stability may be the deciding factor in the battle over 450mm wafers.

10/29/2007  ; Jordan Valley Semiconductors Inc. has been named to the 2007 Deloitte Technology Fast 50 as one of the fastest-growing technology companies in Israel. A manufacturer of next-generation x-ray based semiconductor metrology, Jordan Valley provides patented x-ray technology to semiconductor fabs worldwide.

10/29/2007  October 29, 2007 - Worldwide semiconductor sales rose ~5% for the second consecutive month to a record $22.60 billion in Sept. 2007, riding demand for PCs and cell phones as seasonal patterns build to a head, according to data from the SIA.

10/29/2007  While the industry struggles to continue on the Moore's Law track, 3D approaches superior to those of systems-on-chip may provide an interim solution if the shrink slows down. A SEMATECH-organized workshop in Albany, NY earlier this month (Oct. 11-12) addressed fundamental issues about 3D, including four reasons why every chipmaker has 3D/TSVapproaches on its roadmap, and what needs to be solved before 3D can be effective beyond simple memory.

10/28/2007  October 16, 2007 -- /PRNewswire/ -- AUSTIN, TX -- Molecular Imprints, Inc. (MII) today announced that Toshiba Semiconductor Company has validated the use of MII's imprint lithography technology in developing 22-nm node CMOS devices.

10/28/2007  October 16, 2007 -- LEUVEN, BELGIUM -- IMEC has reached an agreement with ASML to install an ASML EUV pre-production tool in IMEC's 300 mm facility in 2010.

10/28/2007  October 17, 2007 -- WILMINGTON, MA -- MKS Instruments, Inc. has announced that John T.C. Lee, PhD, has joined the company as group vice president, responsible for control and information technology and electrostatic discharge products.

10/25/2007  October 25, 2007 - After touching a trough in 3Q07, semiconductor equipment sales should head back up with small positive growth over the next several quarters, according to market analysis firm The Information Network.

10/25/2007  WiSpry Inc. has introduced its product family of MEMS tunable digital capacitors for cellular applications. These products integrate low power CMOS control and voltage generation logic with an array of tunable RF-MEMS digital capacitors. Samples of these capacitors will be available in 2Q08.

10/25/2007  FormFactor designed its new family of advanced wafer probe cards to address rising costs and technology challenges associated with testing wire bond logic and system-on-chip (SoC) devices.

10/24/2007  October 24, 2007 - Spansion Inc. and Chinese foundry SMIC are partnering to delve further into NOR flash, in a deal that utilizes SMIC's 65nm foundry work for Spansion's MirrorBit technologies, and extend into "selected segments" of flash memory to sell 90nm and 65nm and beyond MirrorBit Quad products in China.

10/23/2007  October 23, 2007 - Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. says it has developed 64Gb multilevel cell NAND flash memory chip using 30nm process technology, built using double-patterning lithography, with commercial chips ready in about a year.

10/23/2007  As a number of presenters made clear at last week's ISSM conference (Oct. 15-17, Santa Clara, CA), there is a movement in the industry that favors the ability to utilize small-lot (<25 wafers) manufacturing as a way to provide fab agility and drive down cycle times. Aquest Systems believes its vehicle-free transport technology, FabEX Transporter, can change the way existing or new fabs implement automation, enabling not only small lots but also a possible wafer size transition.

10/23/2007  Speaking at last week's ISSM, Lam Research's Nick Bright asked a point-blank question: why should equipment suppliers invest in 450mm when there are so many opportunities elsewhere (e.g. solar, FPDs, LEDs, and MEMS)? The answer may depend on whether enough equipment companies can find answers to IC manufacturers' calls to improve fab agility at a reasonable rate of return on investment.

10/23/2007  Tronics Microsystems says its fiscal quarter that ended September 30 marks its fifth consecutive quarter of net profit, and makes it the first pure-play contract manufacturer of advanced MEMS devices to achieve consistent profitability.

10/22/2007  October 22, 2007 - The Fab Owners Association (FOA), an association of mainly second-tier semiconductor manufacturers and suppliers, says its recently-formed purchasing organization, FOA Purchasing Partners Inc., has signed several agreements for services including logistics/transportation, cleanroom supplies, publishing, telecom services, B2B office supplies/equipment, and auto rentals.

10/22/2007  October 22, 2007 - Sarnoff Corp. says its silicon wafer foundry has been accredited as a "microelectronics trusted source" for the US Department of Defense and all other US government users, able to offer foundry services for military quality microelectronics applications.

10/22/2007  October 22, 2007 - Japan's Elpida Memory Inc. and Taiwan foundry UMC have agreed to jointly develop a copper low-k backend process for both advanced DRAM and phase-change random access memory (PRAM).