09/12/2007  September 12, 2007 - Samsung has developed what it says is the industry's first "60nm-class" 2Gb DDR2 DRAM devices, with multiple strategic aims to help stabilize DRAM prices, and solidify its foothold in a sector that will account for nearly half of all DRAM sales in five years.

09/12/2007  Holographix LLC has opened twho new laboratories and thereby has expanded its micro- and nano-replication production capacity by 50%. The company produces cost-effective tools for use in imprint lithography and other micro- and nano-molding processes.

09/11/2007  Silicon wafer edges induce inherent non-uniformities in processing, and also seem to be the main source of defects for immersion lithography. Cleaning/stripping the wafer edge (or "bevel") is thus essential for production yield. Here follows a tale of two companies, two machines, and two different ways to solve the edge problem by dry stripping.

09/11/2007  September 11, 2007 - X-Fab Silicon Foundries says it has enhanced two of its 0.35-micron chip processes to widen offerings for chip designers working on analog/mixed-signal and smart-power applications. X-Fab says the upgrades amount to the first fully modular 0.35-micron foundry process, encompassing digital, analog, lower on-resistance, high-voltage, and embedded non-volatile memory features.

09/11/2007  September 11, 2007 - Cadence Design Systems and Stratosphere Solutions are collaborating to increase 45nm semiconductor device yields by targeting manufacturing variability, combining their technologies to offer improved process modeling, analysis, and implementation flows.

09/11/2007  Global packaging and testing (PAT) revenues are expected to grow at half the rate in 2007 that they did in 2006, and will improve marginally in 2008, according to new data from Gartner Dataquest. A closer look inside the numbers reveals the emergence of outsourced semiconductor assembly and test services (SATS), which is poised to balloon by nearly a third over the next three years and reach equal footing with IDMs.

09/11/2007  September 11, 2007 - Aviza Technology Inc. and Mosel Vitelic Corp. have signed a pact to jointly develop advanced atomic layer deposition (ALD) materials for next-generation flash applications.

09/10/2007  September 10, 2007 - Intel says it has started groundbreaking for its proposed "Fab 68" 300mm wafer fab in the coastal Chinese city of Dalian, the chipmaker's first wafer fab in Asia and first greenfield new fab location in 15 years.

09/10/2007  September 10, 2007 - NIL Technology and Oxford Instruments say they have developed a common etch process that covers all etch steps in nanoimprint lithography production.

09/10/2007  The Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe has begun using its new Electron Beam Lithography system Vistec VB6 to research new application fields for nanotechnology and microsystems technologies.

09/10/2007  September 10, 2007 - Targeting 45nm design, Cadence announced several new design flows that will be part of the 7.1 release of its Encounter digital IC platform in October. Described by the acronym WYDIWYG ("what you design is what you get"), the flows leverage products from the acquisition of Praesagus (CMP Predictor) and ClearShape Technologies (InShape and OutPerform, for physical and electrical variability analysis).

09/10/2007  MMD, a commercial MEMS foundry, has announced the availability of silicon wafer fabrication services. The company had been in limited-volume production for the past 12 months and is now accepting emerging and production orders on a broad scale.

09/06/2007  Olympus Integrated Technologies America (Olympus-ITA), a subsidiary of Olympus Corporation of Japan, completed sale of its Model AL3300 wafer inspection and defect review system to a U.S.-based integrated device manufacturer (IDM). The company will use the AL3300 to inspect tops, edges, and back-sides of 300-mm wafers for bad coats, hot spots, scratches, and contamination.

09/06/2007  September 6, 2007 - Both litigants in an ongoing patent dispute involving probe card technology say a new ruling by the Korean Supreme Court lands in their favor.

09/06/2007  September 6, 2007 - Hynix Semiconductor and STMicroelectronics jointly owned chipmaking facility in Wuxi, China, has sold its 200mm line "C1" to Chinese conglomerate China Resources (Holdings) Co. Ltd. for an undisclosed amount. It's part of Hynix's plan to shift more business to its 300mm capacity, by upgrading some efficient 200mm sites and selling off others.

09/06/2007  September 6, 2007 - Singapore foundry Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd. says its 3Q07 outlook is still the same as projected: breakeven profits (plus or minus $5 million), wiping out a $24.7 million loss in 2Q07, and sales of $322-$344 million, which would be flat to up about 4% from 2Q.

09/06/2007  Oerlikon Solar has introduced micromorph tandem technology for conversion efficiencies of 10% and higher, and has named industry veteran Jeannine Sargent to its newly created CEO position.

09/05/2007  September 5, 2007 - TSMC's wafer shipments are now on pace for about 18% growth in 3Q07 and another 5% in 4Q, and sales should be on the rise as well, as customers in the computing/consumer sector start to pull in shipments, according to one analyst's take.

09/05/2007  Hynix Semiconductor reportedly developed a multichip package (MCP) with 24 stacked NAND flash memory chips, improving on its existing design, according to Korea Times.

09/05/2007  September 5, 2007 - Hynix Semiconductor reportedly has developed a multichip package with 24 stacked NAND flash memory chips, improving on its existing design, according to the Korea Times.