01/21/2005  Brian Dance, Contributing Editor (Europe) Illustrating the need to ensure European technological and industrial competitiveness in the nanoelectronic sector as essential for industrial and economic growth, the MEDEA+ (Microelectronics Development for European Applications) annual forum in Paris (Nov. 23-24) revealed successes of many pan-European collaborative projects carried out under its umbrella.

01/21/2005 

01/19/2005  January 19, 2005 - DuPont Photomasks Inc. has said that as part of a consolidation plan designed to reduce costs and improve capital productivity, operations in its trailing-edge photomask production facility in Kokomo, Indiana, will begin to ramp down immediately. The equipment within the Kokomo site will be disposed of or relocated to other DuPont Photomasks sites, and the facility is expected to close during the 4QFY05, ending June 30.

01/19/2005  January 19, 2005 - Casio Computer Co. Ltd. and Renesas Technology Corp. have agreed to an arrangement whereby Casio will license its wafer level package (WLP) semiconductor device packaging technology to Renesas. The agreement marks the first time Casio has made its WLP technology available to another Japanese semiconductor device manufacturer.

01/19/2005 

01/17/2005  January 17, 2005 - Hynix Semiconductor and Taiwan's ProMOS Technologies have finally signed a strategic alliance agreement to jointly produce DRAM chips using 300mm wafer processing technology, according to the Korea Times. Under the agreement, Hynix will share its DRAM semiconductor processing technology and ProMOS will provide foundry service at its 300mm wafer plant in Taiwan.

01/17/2005  January 17, 2005 - Formosa Plastics Corp. announced yesterday it will spend NT$7 billion (US$219 million) to build the island's first 12-inch silicon wafer plant through its unit, Formosa Komatsu Silicon Corp., reports the Financial Times .

01/17/2005  In many markets, you have to win the technology battle first to win the market competition. With its ability to catalyze innovation across markets and solve a broad array of problems, nanotech can help a company win this first battle. We see opportunities in lithography, photonic crystal technology and sensors.

01/14/2005  January 14, 2005 - Samsung Electronics Co. said Thursday it has begun shipping its multichip packages to Japanese electronics giant Sony Corp. for use in PlayStation Portable game consoles, reports Asia Pulse Pte.

01/13/2005 

01/12/2005 

01/11/2005  January 11, 2005 - Samsung Electronics yesterday announced it has developed chip packaging technology that enables it to stack eight bare memory chips in an ultra-slim single multichip package (MCP), said the Korea Times. The company's MCP technology integrates combinations of eight flash memory and random access memory (RAM) chips into a tiny 11 x 14 x 1.4mm chip package.

01/07/2005  Semiconductor industry firms are prepping their final calendar 4Q04 results, with most showing the effects of an industrywide slowdown.

01/07/2005  January 6, 2005 - National Semiconductor Corp. announced it has initiated a global program to reduce expenses, part of which will affect approximately 550 people, most of whom work in National's manufacturing plants in the US, Europe, and Asia. The program will also streamline manufacturing operations in line with the current utilization of National's factories, and adjust factory levels required to support its ongoing higher value-added analog business model.

01/06/2005  (January 06, 2005) Santa Clara, Calif.—National Semiconductor Corp. is initiating a global program to reduce expenses, streamline manufacturing operations in line with the current utilization of National's factories, and adjust factory levels required to support its ongoing higher value-added analog business model. These actions will affect approximately 550 people, most of whom work in National's manufacturing plants in the United States, Europe, and Asia.

01/06/2005 

01/05/2005  January 5, 2005 - Betting that demand for high-performance chips will remain strong despite the overall market slowdown, Renesas Technology Corp. next fiscal year plans to invest 40-50 billion yen (US$382-477 million) to increase its monthly production capacity for 300mm wafers, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported.

01/05/2005  January 5, 2005 - IIS Material, a startup spawned from research at the University of Tokyo, has developed a way to remove impurities from the silicon waste generated in the semiconductor manufacturing process so the silicon can be reused as a substrate for solar cells, according to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun.

01/04/2005  By Dr. 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. Mattel's new Juice Box* media player for kids uses Matrix Semiconductor's built up layers of programmable ROM for its videos on memory cards. And Tezzaron....

01/04/2005  By J. Robert Lineback, Senior Technical Editor
Researchers at IMEC in Belgium have embarked on an ambitious program to change the meaning of "design for manufacturing." During IMEC's Annual Research Review Meeting this fall, managers outlined a new system-level integration program that will explore circuit and system design concepts, addressing the growth of technology barriers as IC feature sizes are scaled smaller at the 45nm and below process nodes.