04/11/2006  April 11, 2006 - Wafer fab Silterra Malaysia has increased production capacity by 20% to 33,500 wafer starts/month for its 0.13-micron copper processes and 0.18-0.16-micron processes.

04/11/2006  April 11, 2006 - Micron Technology posted mixed results in its fiscal 2Q06, helped by a big payment from flash memory partner Intel, and has raised its capex budget for the year.

04/10/2006  April 10, 2006 - Demand for conventional leadframe and array connect assembly applications gave a hefty boost to new orders in 1Q06, according to equipment provider BE Semiconductor Industries NV, Drunen, The Netherlands.

04/10/2006  April 10, 2006 - Facing increasing pressure particularly from Asian competition, Altis Semiconductor, the chipmaking JV of Infineon Technologies and IBM, said it will lay off 323 workers (about 15% of total workforce) in an effort to reduce its "oversized" operation.

04/10/2006  By his own admission, MEMS industry veteran Kurt Petersen didn't think MEMS resonators were a viable commercial product. For starters, moisture would eventually creep into the packaging, undermining performance. And to make matters worse, the packaging itself would make it difficult if not impossible to compete in a price-driven market.

04/07/2006  April 7, 2006 - Elionix Co. Ltd., a Japanese manufacturer of electron-beam lithography equipment, has signed a deal with SEMTech Solutions to sell its sub-10nm 3-beam systems in the North American market.

04/07/2006  April 7, 2006 - The "Metrology Using X-Ray Technology" (MUXT) consortium, a project funded by the European Commission and carried out by Crolles2 partners ST Microelectronics, Philips Semiconductors, and CEA-LETI to evaluate and assess prototype equipment for next-generation semiconductor technologies, has added Jordan Valley Semiconductors Inc. to its roster.

04/07/2006  April 7, 2006 - Worldwide semiconductor equipment spending will return to double-digit growth in 2006, but concerns linger about a possible oversupply in the memory segment, according to preliminary market data from Gartner Dataquest.

04/06/2006  April 6, 2006 - Materials systems supplier Entegris Inc. has filed a lawsuit against Pall Corp. alleging known misuse of patented technology in certain filtration separation products.

04/06/2006  April 6, 2006 - Sematech's Advanced Technology Development Facility (ATDF) R&D subsidiary has agreed to produce wafers with nonclassical CMOS transistors using implants and FinFET designs for Japan's Elpida Memory.

04/06/2006  April 6, 2006 - Improving conditions in the DRAM segment will translate to a better performance for the semiconductor industry in 2006, according to iSuppli Corp.

04/06/2006  SUSS MicroTec, a supplier of precision manufacturing and test equipment for the semiconductor and emerging markets, announced it is extending its existing wafer bonder range to include a new platform designed specifically for research, development and other low volume bonding applications. Currently the bonder carries the project name of "Elan".

04/05/2006  April 5, 2006 - After months of speculation, Toshiba Corp. and SanDisk have announced plans to build another 300mm NAND flash fab at Toshiba's operations in Yokkaichi, Japan.

04/05/2006  April 5, 2006 - Accent Optical Technologies has developed a new scatterometry acceleration tool to provide advanced critical dimension (CD) metrology for 65nm device manufacturing.

04/05/2006  Hong Kong and Pleasanton, CA — ASAT Holdings Ltd. and ASAT Inc. recently named Kevin Kit Tong Kwan to ASAT Holdings Ltd.'s Board of Directors, succeeding Bella Chhoa. Kwan's appointment to the Board is said to be a "valuable asset" due to his business experience in dealing with companies in Hong Kong and China as ASAT finishes its manufacturing move from Hong Kong to China, according to a statement.

04/05/2006 

04/04/2006  April 4, 2006 - Toshiba America Electronic Components Inc. has merged its ASSP and embedded processor SoC business units into a single operation.

04/04/2006  April 4, 2006 - Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has ramped to mass production of 1Gbit OneNAND flash memory devices, using 70nm process technology that achieve 70% greater efficiency than the 90nm process.

04/04/2006  April 4, 2006 - Intel Corp. said it is the first company to offer NOR multilevel cell (MLC) flash memory chips at 1Gbit density using 65nm process technology, with samples available to customers by June.

04/04/2006  April 4, 2006 - Applied Materials Inc. has joined the Semiconductor Research Consortium (SRC), a university research consortium spun out from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) as a research cooperative supporting the domestic semiconductor industry.