02/22/2005  February 22, 2005 -- Semi foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) and Japan's Genesis Technology, an independent semiconductor testing company, are the two latest members of the Semiconductor Test Consortium (STC).

02/22/2005  (February 22, 2005) Anaheim, Calif. — Growth of system-in-package (SiP) technology, the end of semiconductor scaling, environmental regulations challenges, and the need for more innovation will be among the topics discussed when the International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (iNEMI) unveils its latest roadmap at the APEX/Printed Circuits Expo/Designers Summit conference, currently being held until February 24, in Anaheim, Calif.

02/22/2005  (February 22, 2005) London — Demand for new and improved front-end semiconductor manufacturing technologies, such as wafer cleaning and thin-layer deposition, is expected to stem from the rapid advancements in the IC industry.

02/21/2005 

02/16/2005 

Solid State Technology has collaborated with leaders in various technical working groups of the 2004 International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) to highlight the most significant updates in the new edition of the Roadmap, as well as major challenges to be addressed in the 2005 revision.

02/16/2005  February 16, 2005 - Samsung Electronics said Tuesday it will launch what it claims is the world's first commercial production of 70nm design rule-applied 4-gigabit NAND flash memory chips next month, reported the Korea Times. The chip vendor will also kick-start its first 300mm wafer flash memory production line in July.

02/15/2005  By Paula Doe, Contributing Editor

After all these years of hype, vertical interconnects are finally starting to replace horizontal connections in real products. Infineon is directly connecting security controller chips on top of memory chips in smart cards.

02/15/2005  By M. David Levenson, Senior Editor, Lithography

Will an industry that expects optical exposure tools to print more than 100 300mm wafers/hour embrace $20 million lithography systems with throughputs below 5 wafers/hour if they don't require costly masks? If so, at what node? These were two of the questions that 110 participants tried to answer at the first Sematech Maskless Lithography (ML2) workshop, held January 17-19 in San Jose, CA.

02/15/2005  By Paula Doe, Contributing Editor

Judging from the jump in recent stories in the Japanese trade press, Japan is starting to look like a hotbed of semiconductor equipment and materials startups.

02/15/2005  February 15, 2005 - EV Group has formally opened its new North American headquarters in Tempe, AZ, with a state-of-the-art Class 10 production cleanroom. EV Group will use the new facility for sales and support of its diverse line of tools and for conducting joint development work with the Flexible Display Center (FDC), sponsored by Arizona State University (ASU) and the US Army.

02/15/2005  February 15, 2005 - Axcelis Technologies Inc. today announced that the company's new single wafer ion implantation technology platform has been purchased by IMEC, Europe's largest independent nanoelectronics research center, for use in its sub-45nm device development activities

02/11/2005  February 11, 2005 - STEAG HamaTech announced today that it will work with SEMATECH to develop cleaning technology for 30nm soft defect removal, concentrating on EUV masks and advanced PSM for 193nm immersion lithography, in collaboration with material suppliers, research institutes. and other equipment suppliers.

02/11/2005 

02/10/2005  (February 10, 2005) San Jose, Calif. — Worldwide silicon wafer area shipments hit 1,486 million sq. in. in the fourth quarter of 2004, down 9% from the prior quarter, but up 7% from the fourth quarter of 2003, according to the SEMI Silicon Manufacturers Group (SMG).

02/10/2005 

02/09/2005  February 9, 2005 - Mattson Technology Inc. has received orders for its Helios RTP system from a Taiwanese memory manufacturer to be put in its recently constructed 300mm fab in Hsin Chu. The Helios systems, scheduled to begin shipment in FH05, will be used to manufacture sub-100nm devices, including SDRAMs and DDR SDRAMs.

Reverse osmosis technology meets Israel's stringent environmental regulations for fluoride waste removal from water used in the fab.

02/09/2005  (February 9, 2005) New York City — According to a new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), China's Impact on the Semiconductor Industry, the domestic IC consumption/production gap will continue to accelerate during the next several years, strengthening the Chinese government's resolve to increase domestic production.

02/08/2005  February 8, 2005 - A group of chipmakers have banded together to streamline system-level memory validation and test by defining a single board-level interface standard for using various memory devices on multiple development platforms.

02/08/2005  February 8, 2005 - Toshiba Corp. and SanDisk Corp. have unveiled an 8Gbit NAND flash memory chip fabricated with 70nm process technologies, with read speeds of 60MB/sec, 40% faster than the previous generation.