05/23/2006  May 23, 2006 - Several industry metrics such as tight capacity levels and trough-to-peak growth are now similar to levels just before downturns in previous cycles, suggesting history may soon repeat itself in the semiconductor industry, according to a new report from Advanced Forecasting.

05/22/2006  May 22, 2006 - Marshall Turner, president and CEO of Toppan Photomasks Inc., has stepped down after three years at the helm, leaving to return to his venture investment business. Ltd. David Murray, currently EVP of worldwide operations, will succeed Turner, and take his spot on the company's board of directors.

05/22/2006  The semiconductor industry needs to usher in a new era of "collaborative innovation" to push beyond the limits of classical scaling and achieve new advances in information technology price performance. That idea, proposed by The ConFab opening keynote speaker Bernard Meyerson, IBM fellow, VP strategic alliances, and chief technologist at IBM's Systems and Technology Group, set the tone for three days of top-level executive discussions on a range of issues facing chipmakers and suppliers alike.

05/22/2006  While the common 90nm-65nm platform announced by IBM, Chartered, and Samsung on Sept. 22 aims to offer users the clear benefit of multiple manufacturing sources for a single design, and help fabless design houses better match the IDMs in designing for manufacturability, it's less clear how much of an impact such cooperative partnerships of big chip manufacturers will actually have on suppliers.

05/22/2006  With costs soaring to support nanometer-era IC production, has the fabless industry finally come the point where widespread consolidation is imminent? Or, can fabless companies continue to operate much as they have for the last 15+ years? Daniel Gitlin, VP of semiconductor technology for Xilinx, presented ideas for a new business model for fabless companies in his presentation during the first day of The ConFab in Las Vegas, NV.

05/22/2006  May 22, 2006 - Researchers from the U. of Minnesota, Vanderbilt U., and the U. of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a method to strip hydrogen atoms from silicon surfaces, a means that could enable production of silicon devices at nearly room temperature.

05/22/2006  San Jose, CA — On a 3-month average basis, North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers posted $1.60 billion in orders and a book-to-bill ratio of 1.11 in April 2006, according to SEMI's April 2006 Book-to-Bill Report.

05/22/2006  May 17, 2006 -- Flanders, New Jersey -- Rudolph Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:RTEC), the market leader in advanced macro defect inspection technologies, announced today that two major U.S. semiconductor manufacturers have designated Rudolph's all-surface, macro defect inspection system as best of breed.

05/22/2006  May 22, 2006 - Key ASIC, a Santa Clara, CA-based provider of ASIC and system-on-chip services, has signed a partnership with foundry Silterra Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. to offer streamlined design-to-manufacture services for ASICs in the mobile and consumer electronics markets.

05/22/2006  May 22, 2006 - Nine companies spanning semiconductor design, equipment, and manufacturing have formed the Power Forward Initiative, a group aiming to design and produce more power-efficient electronic devices.

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05/22/2006 

05/19/2006  May 19, 2006 - Demand for semiconductor manufacturing equipment from North American suppliers continued to ramp up in April, as the industry enjoys its strongest growth period in nearly two years, according to new data from SEMI.

05/19/2006  May 19, 2006 - At its annual meeting of shareholders, ASM International NV presented a "roadmap" for its corporate strategy going forward, and proclaimed it will achieve profitability in its maligned frontend equipment business in 2007.

05/18/2006  May 18, 2006 - Worldwide semiconductor manufacturing equipment sales jumped 20% in 1Q06 from the prior quarter, due to robust growth in North America and South Korea, although Korea's tool sales have slowed significantly from last year's levels, according to new data from SEMI.

05/18/2006  May 18, 2006 - European microelectronics consortium IMEC and Riber, a French supplier of molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) technology for compound semiconductors, are collaborating to introduce germanium (Ge) and III-V materials for CMOS scaling beyond the 22nm manufacturing node and beyond.

05/18/2006  May 18, 2006 - Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) says it has fully qualified its 65nm low-power process technology, with several products already ramped and delivering production volumes.

05/17/2006  May 17, 2006 - Toshiba made big strides in NAND flash sales in 1Q06 to pull away from the pack as the clear No. 2 supplier behind market giant Samsung, mainly because everyone else took a bigger hit in ASPs, according to new data from iSuppli Corp.

05/17/2006  May 17, 2006 - Renesas Technology Corp. and Nanya Technology Corp. have settled four pending lawsuits filed by Renesas claiming patent infringement by Nanya's DRAM products, and have signed a cross-licensing agreement.

05/17/2006  May 17, 2006 - SEMATECH's R&D fab subsidiary Advanced Technology Development Facility (ATDF) and the U. of Texas-Austin have formed an Advanced Processing and Prototyping Center (AP2C), a specialized R&D program to develop leading-edge nanotechnology for use in semiconductor manufacturing.