07/25/2006  FEI Co. of Hillsboro, Ore., announced on Monday that Don Kania has been named president, chief executive officer and a board member. He is expected to start at FEI Co., which makes tools for nanoscale characterization and research, in mid August. The appointment marks the end of a search that began with the stepping down of previous CEO Vahe Sarkissian, who left FEI in April.

07/24/2006  A prototype wafer-bonding system designed for high-vacuum applications debuted at SEMICON West 2006, billed as a MEMS-centric wafer bonder. SUSS MicroTec's M-Lock, expected in production in Q'03 2006, is a load-locked system developed for the specific challenges presented by advanced MEMS devices.

07/21/2006  EV Group, which specializes in wafer bond systems, and Brewer Science Inc., a multidivisional technology company, are co-developing a solution for handling ultra-thin wafers. EV Group and Brewer Science's research for high-temperature advanced packaging processes involves temporary wafer bonding for the ultra-thin wafers.

07/21/2006  July 21, 2006 - Singapore foundry Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing said revenues were $364.8 million, up 88% in 2Q06 compared with a year ago, and up about 3% from the prior quarter, helped by "significant growth in the consumer sector." Net income totaled $12.3 million, down from $25.3 million in 1Q06 but reversing a $67.1 million loss in 2Q05.

07/21/2006  July 21, 2006 - Emcore Corp., a provider of compound semiconductor-based components and subsystems, has agreed to sell its electronic materials and device division to IQE plc, a Cardiff, Wales-based provider of compound and epitaxial semiconductor wafers and substrates, for $16 million.

07/21/2006  July 21, 2006 - Spansion Inc. has expanded its partnership with Taiwanese foundry TSMC to phase Spansion's MirrorBit flash memory technology from 110nm process technologies to 90nm, with a production ramp planned for 2H07.

07/20/2006  HP Labs announced the development of a miniature, wireless data chip that embeds digital information into paper, pharmaceutical containers, and other physical objects. The self-contained, RoHS-compliant prototype chip is based on a standard CMOS, with a built-in antenna; according to HP, no special materials are used in fabrication.

07/20/2006  July 20, 2006 - Price cuts and rising inventory dented Intel Corp.'s 2Q06 performance, and the company has responded by cutting its capital spending and R&D targets for the rest of the year.

07/20/2006  SUSS MicroTec, a supplier of precision manufacturing and test equipment for the semiconductor and emerging markets, showed for the first time a unique wafer bonding system designed for high vacuum applications. The company says it will be available in the third quarter of 2006.

07/20/2006  EV Group (EVG), based in St. Florian/Inn, Austria, and Brewer Science, based in Rolla, Mo., announced that they are co-developing a solution for the handling of ultrathin wafers that will allow high-temperature advanced packaging processes using a temporary wafer bonding system.

07/20/2006  XACTIX Inc. and Surface Technology Systems PLC announced a comprehensive line of production-oriented release etching tools for MEMS.

07/19/2006  July 19, 2006 - Magma Design Automation Inc. and Brion Technologies say they plan to link their technologies in order to create a common modeling environment for lithography. The combined environment, expected to be available in late 2006, will span physical design, physical verification, resolution enhancement techniques (RET), optical proximity correction (OPC), and OPC verification.

07/19/2006  July 19, 2006 - Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. said it has ramped to volume production of its 8Gbit NAND flash memory based on multilevel cell (MLC) architecture and 60nm process technologies, two years after announcing development of the technology.

07/19/2006  July 19, 2006 - Cypress Semiconductor Corp. says that it has shipped the first devices manufactured by Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. several months ahead of plan, and will start transferring new 0.13-micron technology to its Chinese foundry partner during the next quarter.

07/19/2006  July 19, 2006 - Austria's EV Group and US-based Brewer Science Inc. say they are codeveloping a temporary wafer-bonding system for handling ultrathin wafers, designed to allow high-temperature advanced packaging processes followed by quick debonding.

07/19/2006  July 19, 2006 - Worldwide semiconductor companies spend more than $30 billion in 2005 on R&D, 10% more than the previous year, and slighly ahead of the 9% compound annual growth rate over the past five years, according to new data from analyst firm IC Insights Inc., Scottsdale, AZ.

07/19/2006  DFM start-up Takumi Technologies, building on its mask-data preparation (MDP) work for NEC and other customers, is now promoting its ability to automatically detect, classify, and repair yield-limiting design "hot spots" -- areas of a design layout which, due to process or geometric conditions, fall outside of process windows, resulting in potential catastrophic or parametric failure.

07/19/2006  July 19, 2006 -- /EV GROUP/ -- EV Group (EVG), based in St. Florian/Inn, Austria, and Brewer Science, Inc., based in Rolla, Missouri, USA, announce that they are co-developing a solution for the handling of ultrathin wafers that will allow high-temperature advanced packaging processes using a temporary wafer bonding system.

07/19/2006  Asylum Research, a Santa Barbara, Calif., manufacturer of atomic force microscopes, announced the availability of its new NanoIndenter module for use with the Asylum Research MFP-3D AFM System.

07/18/2006  In a revealing keynote address at SEMICON West last week, Micron Technology chairman and CEO Steve Appleton offered a behind-the-scenes look at his company's experience in forming business partnerships, and offered some hard-won insight into why partnerships fail and what can be done to ensure their success.