06/05/2007  June 5, 2007 - The Common Platform technology alliance of IBM, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. have announced availability of DFM technology model, data files, and design kits from various partners supporting its 45nm process technology (as well as its 65nm process).

06/05/2007  Microfabrication software provider GenISys GmbH, has formed a technology development partnership with microscope developer JEOL, Ltd., and Cornell University's Nanoscale Science and Technology Facility to develop solutions for direct write e-beam data preparation and electron process correction (nano-EPC) technologies for nano-scale structures.

06/05/2007  June 5, 2007 - The market segment for semiconductor metrology and inspection tools will recover "modestly" this year after "a dismal 2006" in which the segment grew just half the rate of the rest of the frontend equipment market, according to a report from The Information Network.

06/05/2007  The Fab Owners Association (FOA), the association of semiconductor / MEMS manufacturing executives and suppliers, has announced the formation of a semiconductor Group Purchasing Organization (GPO), to be called FOA Purchasing Partners, Inc. (PPI). PPI will be the official group purchasing organization of the FOA and its device maker members, providing procurement services, including aggregation of demand, contract negotiations and contract management for semiconductor manufacturing consumables.

06/04/2007  June 4, 2007 - Worldwide sales of semiconductors slipped 2.1% in April vs. March (and increased a scant 1.6% year-on-year) to $19.92 billion -- the first time in 12 months that chip sales (calculated as a 3-mo. moving average) have been below $20 billion -- as declining ASPs in major industry segments dampen sales, notes the SIA in its latest monthly analysis.

06/04/2007  June 4, 2007 - The Fab Owners Association (FOA), a collection of an association of mainly second-tier semiconductor manufacturers, has formed a group purchasing organization, FOA Purchasing Partners Inc., to represent the FOA and its devicemaker members with procurement services for semiconductor manufacturing consumables.

06/04/2007  June 4, 2007 - Among the past week's news in Taiwan, a reported deal between Taiwan's Macronix and Qimonda AG has raised the stakes in the memory market, and raised eyebrows as a possible thwart to increased influence from Powerchip. Elsewhere, UMC can thank SiS for an upcoming spike in its 300mm utilization rates, and MediaTek is scrambling to find room to produce its digital TV demodulators.

06/04/2007  June 4, 2007 - ARM says it has created a test chip incorporating physical IP (libraries for standard cell and I/O, plus single-port SRAM memory compiler) using UMC's 65nm process technology and silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology.

06/04/2007  June 4, 2007 - GenISys GmbH, JEOL Ltd., and Cornell U. are partnering to develop advanced technologies for direct-write e-beam data preparation and electron process correction technologies for nanometer-range structures.

06/04/2007  EV Group (St. Florian) installed an EVG620 precision mask and bond aligner system at repeat-customer Danish Advanced Nanotech Center for Highly Integrated Production (DANCHIP) facilities at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU — Lyngby). The machine will be used for research, education, prototyping, and small-scale production of micro- and nanotechnology.

06/04/2007  June 4, 2007 - A roundup of news from the past week in Japan finds more delays in Canon/Toshiba's planned rollout of SED TV technology, new business frontiers from companies selling pure water systems, and researchers touting work with quantum dots and laser microscopes that plug into vacuum environments for materials analysis.

06/01/2007  By Phil LoPiccolo, Editor-in-Chief

Among the most significant developments in interconnect slated to appear at this month's International Interconnect Technology Conference (IITC, June 4-6, in Burlingame, CA) involve 3D chip architectures. Sitaram Arkalgud, director of SEMATECH's interconnect division and its newly created 3D interconnect initiative, calls 3D chip architecture his "new religion," because stacked chips allow interconnects to be much shorter than...

06/01/2007  PROLITH has long been the most popular tool for optimizing lithography processes before exposure, enabling accurate simulations on small circuit regions with a library of calibrated resist and other material parameters. But running it under Windows on a PC has always seemed too slow to help wavefront engineers optimize entire chip designs. To address this, KLA-Tencor has introduced LithoWare, a new Linux-based product enabling semiconductor circuit designers to run PROLITH on large server farms.

06/01/2007  June 1, 2007 - Japan's government-affiliated New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) says it has drawn circuit patterns with just 26nm linewidths (isolated and dense lines), which would vault Japan back among the frontrunners for achieving chip manufacturing at the 32nm node using EUV, according to local news reports.

06/01/2007  Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), with help from the U. of Maryland and Howard U., have devised a fabrication method that creates tiny ultraviolet light-emitting diodes from nanowires, and NIST says the technique is "well-suited" for scaling to commercial production.

06/01/2007  Clean Construction Protocol should be a critical consideration during high-tech facility design and construction.

06/01/2007  Cost-cutting is a reality within many companies that utilize cleanrooms. Whether it’s a result of pressure from above to please investors or increased competition, cleanroom engineers are more than ever called upon to decrease costs and increase efficiency.

05/31/2007  May 31, 2007 - Dongbu HiTek Co., the merged entity of Dongbu Electronics and Dongbu Hannong Chemicals, says it has developed in-house a special design library for LCD driver IC devices using 130nm CMOS process technologies, which it says minimizes electromigration and cross-talk. The company developed a 130nm design library for image sensor processors earlier this year.

05/31/2007  May 31, 2007 - Samsung and Hynix are working to raise production of flash memory chips by July to meet increased demand from Apple, on expectations of the iPhone launch this summer and rumors of a new iPod to be introduced later this year, notes the Nikkei daily paper.

05/31/2007  e2v, developer and manufacturer of electronic components and subsystems, has announced a new generation of high-sensitivity imaging sensors that leverage technology from Tracit Technologies, a new division of the Soitec Group.