06/23/2005  June 23, 2005 - PowerChip Semiconductor Corp., ProMos Technologies Inc., and Nanya Technology Corp. have raised a total NT$43.5 billion (US$1.4 billion) for expansions in the first half of 2005, said the Taiwan Economic News. The three DRAM chipmakers will mostly spend the capital on expansions at their 300mm silicon-wafer foundry plants.

06/22/2005  June 22, 2005 - Aixtron AG has received an order from Hangzhou Silan Azure Optoelectronics Co. Ltd., Hangzhou, China, for an AIX 2400G3 HT and a Thomas Swan close-coupled showerhead system. Silan Azure, a new LED start-up, plans to mass produce high brightness LEDs with Aixtron and Thomas Swan thin-film growth systems.

06/22/2005  GLOUCESTER, MA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 06/21/2005 -- Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates, Inc. announced today that it has shipped a platform of VIISta single wafer ion implanters to Winbond Electronics Corporation in Taiwan to be used in 300mm production. The shipment of platform tools consist of VIISta HC high current, VIISta 810XE medium current and VIISta 3000HP high energy ion implanters.

06/21/2005  June 21, 2005 - The Semiconductor Equipment Consortium for Advanced Packaging (SECAP) has announced that it will disband now that the consortium has successfully established 300mm wafer-level packaging as a functional technology, and full-volume production on the first installed wafer-bumping line is underway.

06/20/2005  As globalization continues its relentless onslaught, the question inevitably arises: Precisely who benefits from this scenario? Certainly shareholders stand to benefit from innovation and the industrial development that follows. The employees of new firms benefit, too. And then there are the local economies in which such industries develop. They benefit from the creation of new jobs, the expansion of the local service sector, and from the reinvigorated tax base that results.

06/17/2005  The World Trade Organization (WTO) has ruled that the European Union also should revise the duties it has imposed against Hynix Semiconductor, four months after ruling that the US also violated trade regulations by instituting tariffs against the South Korean memory chipmaker.

06/17/2005  (June 17, 2005) Midland, Mich. — Dow Corning Corp.'s TC-5022 thermally conductive grease has been approved by AMD for use on its AMD64 processors and inclusion in its bundled processor-in-a-box (PIB) products. TC-5022 offers a 10% to 15% reduction in thermal resistance, according to customer testing, improving thermal performance. It provides a thermal "path" between the microprocessor package and its device-cooling heatsink and highly efficient transfer of heat away from the processor.

06/17/2005  June 16, 2005 - North American-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.03 billion in orders in May 2005 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 0.85, according to SEMI.

06/17/2005  (June 17, 2005) Milpitas, Calif. — Contract IC assembly services provider CORWIL Technology Corp. has added 300-mm wafer dicing capability to its offering. Both bumped and non-bumped wafers are being processed in CORWIL's fully automatic, dual-spindle Disco system, complementing CORWIL's existing high-volume wafer dicing, pick-and-place, and die inspection services, wire bond and flip chip IC assembly services, and wafer thinning and polishing services.

06/16/2005  (June 16, 2005) Washington, D.C. — SEMI is persuading Congress to pass the "Investment in America Act of 2005" (S. 627 & H.R. 1736) to strengthen and permanently extend the R&D tax credit to foster innovation and promote the industry's continued investment in the research and development of new microelectronics technologies.

06/15/2005  (June 15, 2005) New York, N.Y. — There exists great concern about the environmental, health, and safety (EHS) risks of nanoparticles — tiny, engineered particles of matter might harm workers, consumers, or the environment. Such EHS risks can be appropriately addressed using well-established risk management techniques, according to a new report from Lux Research, titled "A Prudent Approach to Nanotech Environmental, Health, and Safety Risks."

06/15/2005 

06/14/2005  With worldwide DRAM sales giving a better-than-expected performance in 1Q05 following a seasonal 4Q peak, and some DRAM makers preparing to convert to higher-margin NAND flash memory, the worst may soon be over for the besieged DRAM market, based on new data from iSuppli Corp.

06/14/2005  For years, chip industry pundits and managers have talked about the need for "soft landings" in semiconductor downturns to help smooth out the disruptive effects of boom/bust cycles, which have driven and derailed market growth for decades. Based on 1Q05 data released May 2, the semiconductor industry may be witnessing a bona fide soft landing after chip revenues reached record levels in 2H04.

06/14/2005  By Bob Haavind, Editorial Director

Everywhere at the recent SEMICON Europa event in Munich, Germany, there was talk about China's impact on the industry. With a backdrop of Chinese demonstrations against Japan during the show week, along with chest-thumping by government officials on both sides, there was concern about future stability in that region, as well as potential tough competition from China in advanced chipmaking.

06/14/2005  June 14, 2005 - Ultratech Inc. has announced that it has received multiple-system orders from several southeast Asian customers for its NanoTech 190 lithography systems. The NanoTech 190 tools, specifically designed for thin-film head (TFH) applications, will be utilized for back-end rowbar processing -- the processing step required to add the aerodynamic surface to rows of TFH devices before wafer singulation.

06/10/2005  June 10, 2005 -- A new report indicates that 20 new fabs are expected to be built in China between 2005 and 2008, with many of the projects to be equipped with used and refurbished equipment. SEMI's China Capital Equipment and Electronic Materials Market Outlook also says that in 2004, new semiconductor equipment sales in mainland China reached US$2.73 billion, with used/refurbished equipment sales estimated at US$180 million.

06/10/2005  Although China currently accounts for a relatively small share of the world semiconductor total, 20 new fabs are expected to be built between 2005 and 2008.

06/09/2005  June 9, 2005 - Denso Corp. has said that it will build an additional plant to produce IC wafers at the site of its Kota plant in Aichi Prefecture, central Japan, according to a report in the Nikkei English News. Desno, the automotive component manufacturing affiliate of Toyota Motor Corp., said it will initially invest about 17 billion yen (US$158 million) for the new production facility by the fiscal year ending March 2007.

06/08/2005  June 8, 2005 - IBM, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. are jointly developing design kits for the 65nm base and low-power processes. Specifically, the three companies will offer 65nm designers common design kits that consist of physical verification (design rule checking (DRC) and layout versus schematic (LVS) matching) and parasitic extraction (RCX) technology files.