07/11/2007  July 11, 2007 - Following its plan to carve out its flash memory business in a JV with Intel, STMicroelectronics says it will shut down three of its manufacturing locations over the next two years, resulting in about 4000 employee layoffs.

07/10/2007  As another SEMICON West opens, IMEC's experts discussed with WaferNEWS what they see are they major keys to the future of semiconductor industry: exploring new markets, bringing finFETs into manufacturing, mastering 3D integration, and addressing sub-32nm low-k deposition challenges.

07/10/2007  Despite the fact that it's done much of its manufacturing in nanoscale dimensions for years, the semiconductor industry hasn't yet had much use for the unique nanoscale properties of the nanoparticles, nanowires, quantum dots, etc. usually considered nanotechnology, nor found much use for the nanoscale patterning processes developed by the chipmakers. But that may be starting to change, judging by the crop of emerging technologies selected for SEMICON West's Technology Innovation Showcase.

07/10/2007  As the industry marches from 90nm to 65nm and 45nm, it has become increasingly difficult to achieve fast yield ramp due to random defects, process variations, and other design-for-manufacturing (DFM) issues localized in layout hot spots. Hoping to become the leading company bridging the gap between IC design and manufacturing is Takumi Technology with its automatic layout repair/optimization software.

07/10/2007  July 10, 2007 - PULLNANO, a European Commission-sponsored research project, says it has developed a functional demo of a CMOS SRAM built with 32nm design rules.

07/10/2007  July 10, 2007 - FormFactor Inc. and Elpida Memory have formed a strategic partnership to help Elpida reduce its annual test costs by creating a "test solution roadmap" that takes "a holistic view that examines the entire test function and its place in the manufacturing process," the companies said.

07/10/2007  Nantero, Inc. says it is working with HP to explore the use of HP inkjet technology and Nantero's carbon nanotube formulation to create flexible electronics products and develop low-cost printable memory applications.

07/10/2007  Grandis, Inc. has received a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop and commercialize spin-transfer torque random-access memory (STT-RAM). STT-RAM is a next-generation non-volatile technology designed to enable excellent scalability and unlimited endurance with low power and fast read/write capability.

07/09/2007  June 26, 2007 -- /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- WILMINGTON, MA -- MKS Instruments, Inc. has announced that SEZ AG has selected MKS' LIQUOZON(R) LoopO3 dissolved ozone systems for its next-generation single wafer processors.

07/09/2007  July 9, 2007 - Ofer Du-Nour, founder of Israeli metrology firm Tevet Process Control Technologies Ltd., has been named as CEO of the company, following the sudden resignation of Yuval Wasserman "to pursue other interests." Peter Gillespie, VP of marketing and sales, also has been promoted to president of the firm.

07/09/2007  July 9, 2007 - Anadigics Inc. says it has broken ground for a new 150mm gallium arsenide (GaAs) IC wafer fab in the Kunshan New and Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone of China's Jiangsu Province, projecting to complete construction complete in 1H08 and start fab operations later next year.

07/06/2007  July 7, 2007 - DRAM price plunges will push Powerchip Semiconductor Corp. into the red in 2Q07 with a $91-$106 million loss, but revenues are expected to be better than 1Q, and losses should ease in the next few months as the company moves to 70nm process technologies, according to the Taiwan Economic News.

07/06/2007  Electro Scientific Industries, Inc. (ESI), agreed to acquire New Wave Research, Inc. (NWR — Fremont, CA), adding sapphire wafer scribing, failure analysis, LCD repair, and other capabilities to its portfolio of microengineering equipment. ESI will pay $36 million net cash outlay for the laser-based-systems manufacturer.

07/06/2007  EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW This month's edition of Chip Forensics by analyst Dick James delves into Flash technology, including the Samsung K9F2G08U0M 2-Gb single-level cell (SLC) Flash.

07/05/2007  July 5, 2007 - Electro Scientific Industries Inc., a supplier of photonics and laser systems, has agreed to acquire New Wave Research Inc., a developer of high-end laser-based systems targeting sapphire wafer scribing and laser micromachining, for $36 million in cash (about 1x the firm's current annual revenue). The deal is expected to be roughly breakeven in ESI's fiscal 2008 (ending in April) and accretive in fiscal 2009.

07/05/2007  July 5, 2007 - UMC and Belgian firm Melexis say they are shipping ICs using 0.18-micron processes with embedded flash memory (eFlash process and eFlash macro) to auto-module producers for assembly, targeting applications such as automotive sensors.

07/03/2007  June 19, 2007 -- /PRNewswire/ -- ALLENTOWN, PA -- Akrion, Inc. will ship a 300 mm single-wafer Velocity surface preparation system to IMEC, Europe's leading independent nanoelectronics research center facility in Leuven, Belgium.

07/03/2007  July 3, 2007 - STMicroelectronics is looking to offload CMOS image sensor work to both TSMC and ProMOS Technologies in an effort to reduce manufacturing costs ahead of an expected transition from 200mm to 300mm production requirements, according to a Digitimes report.

07/03/2007  July 3, 2007 - In a teardown analysis of Apple's iPhone, iSuppli Corp. finds several surprises and newcomers to the device component party, including Infineon, National, and Balda. But the big winner may be a Korean memory giant.

07/03/2007  VLSI Research, Inc., named the top ten companies in its 10 BEST Customer Satisfaction 2007 surveys for equipment suppliers. Inovys, SUSS MicroTec, Orthoydne, Varian, JEOL, and Carl Zeiss took top slots for test equipment, material handling, assembly equipment, process diagnostics, chip making, and wafer processing.