07/18/2006  Spanning the SEMICON West show floor, SST Senior Ed Korczynski reports on equipment providers' merger progress, market strategies, and new and improved technology offerings ranging from metrology to wafer cleaning to liquid waste abatement.

07/18/2006  In a first-day presentation at SEMICON West, Klaus Rinnen of Gartner/Dataquest reported a bright outlook for 2006, both for the semiconductor industry and its equipment suppliers, followed by a potential "soft patch" in 2007, and an upturn to record levels in 2008. That feeling of comfort combined with tempered optimism characterized the entire atmosphere at SEMICON West -- everyone seemed to feel that things were good now and the future no more uncertain than usual, in our cyclical industries.

07/17/2006  The 2006 semiconductor equipment market is expected to grow 18% in 2006, with the Chinese market region leading the trend, according to SEMI's Mid-year Consensus Forecast. Respondents surveyed saw a flat market approaching in 2007, with 2008 reviving growth to 18%.

07/17/2006  July 17, 2006 - Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) has introduced Reference Flow 7.0 for its 65nm process technology, offering statistical static timing analyzer, power management techniques, and various DFM enhancements, including tools from Magma Design Automation.

07/17/2006  July 17, 2006 - Chinese foundry Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. has established a Japanese subsidiary to establish a presence in the domestic market, aiming to drum up business for mature process technologies in a region known for doing things in-house.

07/17/2006  July 17, 2006 - The US federal government might be done with a group of DRAM chipmakers for their alleged price-fixing practices several years ago, but for Attorneys General in 34 states the fight is just getting started. A federal lawsuit has been filed in San Francisco, CA, against seven international DRAM chipmakers and their US subsidiaries, seeking damages against consumers in various states, as well as state and local governments.

07/14/2006  July 14, 2006 - Intel Corp. says it will lay off 1000 managers, about % of its workforce, following up on its promise to identify underperforming business areas and respark growth.

07/14/2006  July 14, 2006 - Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Siltronic AG have finalized plans to build a $1 billion, 300mm wafer fab in Singapore, with peak output of 300,000 wafers/month by 2010. The partnership, announced earlier this year, represents "a first" for the industry, with a wafer supplier partnering with a major chipmaker in such a venture.

07/14/2006  July 14, 2006 - Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc. (ASE) and Powerchip Semiconductor Corp. have agreed to form a joint venture in Taiwan to provide memory IC-related package and testing services. Power ASE Technology Inc. will offer backend capacity to support Powerchip's growth, while giving ASE expertise in memory testing to support its SIP and SOC offerings to customers, according to the companies.

07/14/2006  July 12, 2006 -- /BUSINESS WIRE/ -- SAN FRANCISCO -- Ferrotec Corporation, a global leader in supplying materials, components, and precision system solutions to the semiconductor manufacturing industry, today announced significant improvements to the standard ferrofluid magnetic liquids which provide the core sealing function in Ferrotec's Ferrofluidic(R) vacuum rotary feedthroughs.

07/13/2006  July 13, 2006 - The Fab Owners Association (FOA), a nonprofit group representing largely second-tier semiconductor manufacturers, has added Freescale Semiconductor's Oakhill facility (Austin, TX) as a voting member, and welcomed four other firms as associate members. The organization's devicemaker members currently represent approximately 800,000 200mm-equivalent monthly wafer starts, and more than $21 billion in annual revenue.

07/13/2006  July 13, 2006 - Toshiba and SanDisk have officially laid out plans for their new NAND flash memory venture: a massive 100,000 wafer/month facility, with investments expected to top $3.0 billion through the end of 2008. And reportedly the two have picked a location for their next $5.2 billion megafab, also with 100,000 wafers/month capacity.

07/13/2006  July 13, 2006 - In the latest step to consolidate manufacturing operations and refocus on core technologies, Atmel Corp. said it has agreed to sell its subsidiary and wafer manufacturing facility in Grenoble, France, for approximately $140 million in cash to e2v Technologies plc, a UK-based manufacturer of electronic tube and sensor components and subsystems.

07/13/2006  July 13, 2006 - AMD said it is now shipping 64bit processors manufactured at Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd.'s Fab 7 using 300mm wafers and 90nm process technologies, under their wide-ranging development and manufacturing partnership.

07/13/2006  Micron Technology Inc. joined IMEC's sub-32-nm CMOS research platform as a core partner, becoming the ninth IC company to engage in the project. Intel, Philips, Samsung, TSMC, Texas Instruments, and others participate in IMEC's 300-mm research facilities. Researchers define their work as the sharing of broad-range, basic research to solve core problems for sub-32-nm nodes.

07/13/2006 

07/12/2006  July 12, 2006 - Semiconductor Research Corp., a university-research consortium for semiconductor technologies, has opened a Non-Classical CMOS Research Center for five universities to collaborate on development III-V compound semiconductors, seeking production-quality results that could replace classical silicon CMOS as early as 2012.

07/12/2006  July 12, 2006 - A projected 28% compound annual growth rate for the flip-chip packaging sector will give a big boost to vendors of lithography and etch systems, according to data from The Information Network.

07/12/2006  Socket and connector provider Antares conTech and UMD Advanced Test Technologies have executed a letter of intent to merge. The combined company, named Antares Advanced Test Technologies, will provide engineering services and products for semiconductor test.

07/12/2006  July 12, 2006 - Micron Technology Inc. has joined IMEC's sub32nm CMOS research platform as a core partner, and will participate in IMEC's advanced flash memory program, joining eight other global IC manufacturers and foundries, both groups announced.