04/30/2007  April 30, 2007 - The market for chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) equipment and materials kept apace with the overall semiconductor equipment market in 2006, growing at about 24%, but despite a growing number of competitors two stalwarts still dominate the market, according to market research firm The Information Network.

04/30/2007  April 30, 2007 - Memory maker Hynix says its sales and operating profits took a hit in 1Q due to sharp price declines in both DRAM and NAND, but the DRAM side was offset by surging bit growth and a shift in capacity, at the expense of NAND flash operations.

04/30/2007  April 30, 2007 - Hynix Semiconductor Inc. says it has begun construction of its new 300mm facility, Fab M-11, in Cheongju, North Chungcheong province, which it plans to have up and running by 3Q08 for sub-48nm NAND flash memory production. Total investment is projected to be about $4.10 billion over roughly 2.5 years.

04/27/2007  April 27, 2007 - Singapore foundry Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing says 1Q profits were up slightly to $5.3 million vs. 4Q06, but were well off year-ago earnings of $22.0 million, while revenues were off both Q-Q and Y-Y due to excess inventory and seasonal declines. 2Q should be a bit better, but ASPs are seen still sliding by as much as 16%.

04/27/2007  April 27, 2007 - Chinese flagship foundry SMIC posted an $8.8 million profit in 1Q07, vs. essentially breakeven in the prior quarter, on a small 1% uptick in sales to $388.3 million. After spending only ~13% of its FY07 capex budget in 1Q, the foundry is prepared to open its wallet to spend about 2/3 of that budget in 2Q.

04/27/2007  By Françoise von Trapp, managing editor

MEMS technology spans the entire semiconductor industry, with wafer processes through test, assembly, and packaging. As these micro-sized devices involve delicate structures, processes continue to evolve to address the complexities of MEMS manufacturing. SUSS and STS joined forces to present a U.S.-based roadshow "MEMS Technology: Embracing the Future," to share developments that are bringing manufacturing processes into the 300-mm range.

04/27/2007  SanDisk Corporation and Qimonda AG will jointly develop and manufacture muli-chip packages (MCPs), incorporating SanDisk NAND flash and controllers with Qimonda low-power mobile DRAM, through a jointly owned company in Portugal. The MCPs target high-capacity memory requirements of data-intensive mobile applications.

04/26/2007  FormFactor, Inc., shipped a 26,000 pin-count wafer probe card, based on its PH150XP platform, to packaging and wafer-test house Tera Probe, Inc., for testing advanced DRAM wafers.

04/26/2007  April 25, 2007 - Just a month after its CEO left the company, Nanometrics says CFO Dave McCutcheon has followed him out the door "to pursue other opportunities," the company said in a statement. Quentin Wright, currently chief accounting officer, will take over as interim CFO until a permanent successor is found.

04/26/2007  April 26, 2007 - Qimonda AG and SanDisk Corp. have agreed to jointly develop and manufacture multichip packages (MCP) targeting mobile handsets, combining SanDisk's NAND flash and controllers with Qimonda's low-power mobile DRAM.

04/26/2007  April 26, 2007 - Ponte Solutions says it has raised $7.5 million in Series B funding from Mayfield Fund and US Venture Partners as well as private investors, bringing its total VC backing to about $17 million.

04/26/2007  April 26, 2007 - Qimonda AG says it plans to build a new 300mm DRAM fab in Singapore, spending about 2 billion euros (~US $2.73 billion) over five years on the site that will boast 60,000 wafers/month when fully ramped.

04/26/2007  ClassOne Equipment, Inc. has opened a new facility, significantly expanding the company's ability to supply refurbished semiconductor and nanotechnology equipment.

04/25/2007  April 25, 2007 - The top 10 suppliers of semiconductor equipment remained largely unchanged in 2006, even though only half beat the entire equipment industry's 23% growth rate, according to new data from VLSI Research.

04/25/2007  April 25, 2007 - Schott Lithotec, the last-standing US supplier of photomask plates, is ceasing production and will sell its Poughkeepsie, NY facility, finally deciding that lower ASPs and a shift of customers to Asia means it's no longer a viable business to be in.

04/25/2007  Gerald K. "Skip" Fehr, Ph.D., joined Mirror Semiconductor's technical advisory board (TAB), to develop the company's wire-bonding designs, named Mirrored Pinout. Fehr, an industry consultant in San Jose, has served at Fairchild Semiconductor, Intel, LSI Logic, and Texas Instruments (TI).

04/25/2007  April 25, 2007 - IM Flash Technologies, the NAND flash JV between Intel Corp. and Micron Technology Inc., is sampling 16Gb die density, 50nm multilevel cell NAND flash devices, and work is underway on 40nm NAND as well, the companies said.

04/24/2007  April 24, 2007 - Rasa Industries Ltd. is spending about 3 billion yen (US $25.3 million) on in its wafer reclamation business to boost 300mm wafer-handling capacity by 25% to 150,000 wafers/month by the end of the current fiscal year, to match growth in 300mm semiconductor production, notes the Nikkei Business Daily.

04/24/2007  April 24, 2007 - Powerchip Semiconductor Corp.'s 1Q07 earnings were its lowest since last summer, due to oversupplies and 60% price declines, but Taiwan's biggest memory chipmaker thinks the falling prices are spurring demand that will resurge later in the year, notes the Taipei Times.

04/24/2007  April 24, 2006 - Citing a number of factors ranging from mobile-phone shipments to lingering excess inventories and a slumping DRAM market, iSuppli Corp. has issued a "modest" revision, lowering its outlook for 2007 semiconductor sales to about 8% from 10.6%.