04/04/2006  FEI Co., a Hillsboro, Ore., maker of focused ion- and electron-beam tools for nanoscale characterization and research, announced late Monday that Vahe Sarkissian has stepped down as the company's chairman, president and chief executive officer and will be leaving the company. Sarkissian, who joined the company in 1998, would also resign as a director prior to the company's annual shareholder meeting on May 11.

04/04/2006 

04/03/2006  April 3, 2006 - Japanese chipmaker Renesas Technology Corp. has joined the ranks of SEMATECH's International Manufacturing Initiative (ISMI), becoming the second Japanese representative in the group.

04/03/2006  April 3, 2006 - Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. (ASMC), has raised about US $83.9 million in an initial public offering.

04/03/2006 

04/03/2006  Lumera Corp., a nanotechnology company, announced that it had received an order from Optoelectronics Industry Development Association.

04/01/2006  Last week, I tried spring skiing in New England. I didn’t know if I’d remember all the necessary techniques.

04/01/2006  A method was developed that allows a socket to be soldered in place of the package within the same footprint.

04/01/2006  Achieving design for yield (DFY) has more to do with effectively managing the IC design process than it does with introducing a new generation of software tools.

04/01/2006  More Speed and More Control

03/31/2006  Phoenix, AZ — The second annual IMAPS Device Packaging Conference, March 20–23, drew double the audience of last year. Sessions were crowded, exhibit space was sold out, and excitement was high. The conference, which this year incorporated the former IMAPS Flip Chip Workshop, offered three keynote speakers and five parallel tracks, with 26 sessions totaling about 100 papers.
By George Riley, Ph.D., contributing editor

03/31/2006  March 31, 2006 - Cypress Semiconductor Corp. and Simtek Corp. have expanded their yearlong licensing and development agreement, which involved creating a 0.13-micron SONOS-based CMOS nonvolatile static random-access memory (nvSRAM) process.

03/31/2006  March 31, 2006 - In an effort to streamline its "unproductive" photomask manufacturing infrastructure in North America, Photronics Inc., Brookfield, CT, said it will close its manufacturing facility in Austin, TX, taking a $15-$18 million charge in fiscal 2006 and laying off 6% of its workforce.

03/31/2006  March 31, 2006 - Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. reportedly is considering acquiring another 200mm foundryto help relieve currently strained foundry capacity for some older process technologies (0.15-0.18-micron.

03/31/2006  March 31, 2006 - Infineon Technologies AG has officially announced the spinoff of its memory chip unit as a separate entity by May 1, two months ahead of schedule.

03/30/2006  March 30, 2006 - For the first time ever, the optoelectronics market is expected to surpass the discrete semiconductor segment this year to become the second largest market segment in the semiconductor industry behind ICs, according to a new report from IC Insights Inc., Scottsdale, AZ.

03/30/2006  March 30, 2006 - SEMATECH says it has identified metal electrode materials for use with nMOS transistors with high-k dielectric, a big step on the way toward fabricating working CMOS devices using metal gate and high-k dielectric stacks.

03/30/2006  March 30, 2006 - Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd., IBM Corp., and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. have announced availability of design-for-manufacturing (DFM) technology, models, design kits, and data files for their common 65nm process technology platform.

03/29/2006  March 29, 2006 - For the first time in memory, foundry segment revenue growth lagged behind that of the overall semiconductor industry in 2005, according to preliminary data from Gartner Dataquest.

03/29/2006