11/01/2004  November 1, 2004 - Orders of Japanese semiconductor manufacturing equipment marked their first year-on-year decline in September after 16 months of consistent growth greater than 50%, according to data from the Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan (SEAJ).

11/01/2004  November 1, 2004 - MCNC Research & Development Institute, a North Carolina-based nonprofit research organization, has contracted with Lucent Technologies to provide 3D interconnect technology as part of a joint R&D project for the US Department of Defense's Coherent Communications, Imaging, and Targeting (CCIT) program.

11/01/2004  A wireless sensor-on-a-plate is giving photomask makers a view inside the manufacturing process, letting them solve critical dimension challenges without work disruption or the need for manual modifications.

11/01/2004  I recently put together a panel of experts to discuss the concept of "jisso," and what the Jisso North American Council hopes to accomplish.

10/29/2004  October 29, 2004 - DuPont Photomasks Inc. said it is installing at its advanced photomask production facility in Round Rock, TX, a leading-edge photomask production line to support semiconductor devices at volume production with 90nm design rules and prototype devices with 65nm design rules. The total investment represents more than $30 million.

10/28/2004  (October 28, 2004) Hsinchu, Taiwan—Taiwanese semiconductor memory specialist U-Chip and Ansoft Corporation jointly announce their partnership for IC design and simulation. The power of Ansoft's Nexxim circuit simulator is essential for U-Chip to predict transient behavior and power consumption of their embedded read-only memory (ROM) IC designs.

10/28/2004  October 28, 2004 - Powerful aftershocks that rocked Niigata Prefecture, Japan, and its vicinity after Saturday's large earthquakes have delayed rehabilitation work at manufacturing plants, said Kyodo News International.

10/27/2004  October 27, 2004 - KLA-Tencor announced it has acquired the Wafer Inspection Systems business of Inspex, Inc., a US company owned by Photonics Management Corp., which is a subsidiary of Hamamatsu Photonics KK of Japan, for an undisclosed amount.

10/27/2004  Chicago-based NanoInk, Inc. has announced its exclusive license of a family of patents from the University of Illinois. The family is entitled "Nanoscale Chemical Surface Patterning Dip Pens," according to a recent release. The family of patents adds to NanoInk's patent portfolio, which already includes over 100 filings.

10/26/2004  Dr. Paula Doe, Contributing Editor
High-k films for DRAM capacitors look poised to create real volume production demand for atomic layer deposition (ALD) tools. But furnace makers with new batch ALD furnaces may challenge the leading ALD suppliers' single-wafer cluster tools for the business. Samsung has started using batch ALD in its 90nm memory production, reportedly with tools from several different suppliers.

10/25/2004  October 25, 2004 - Sharp Corp. and IBM Japan Ltd. are teaming up to create a 1MB smart card that will be equipped with IBM's Java Card Open Platform (JCOP) operating system, according to Asia Pulse Pte Ltd. The firms aim to begin shipping samples around January.

10/22/2004  October 22, 2004 - ADE Corp. has announced that a leading Japanese silicon wafer supplier has placed a multimillion dollar order for wafer geometry systems to further support its previously announced 300mm bare wafer production capacity expansion.

10/20/2004  October 20--BOC Edwards announced today that it has received an order from Akrion for 19 additional chemical blend and delivery modules to support Goldfinger Mach2HP megasonic wafer cleaning tools at a major Asian fab. The equipment set has been designed and engineered to complement Akrion's process equipment.

10/18/2004  October 18, 2004 - Three chipmakers have signed deals in the past week that will expand the scope of their operations in Mainland China.

10/18/2004  October 18, 2004 - Fairchild Semiconductor has made a five-year foundry agreement with Jilin Sino-Microelectronics (JSMC) to manufacture selected Fairchild MOSFET and bipolar power products. JSMC will utilize its recently completed wafer fab in Jilin City, Jilin Province in China.

10/18/2004  October 18, 2004 - Materials metrology supplier Semilab R.T., Budapest, Hungary, has completed its acquisition of SemiTest Inc., Billerica, MA, the companies said Friday.

10/15/2004  (October 15, 2004) Willow Grove, Pa.—Kulicke & Soffa Industries will hold a grand opening event on October 15, 2004 at its new state-of-the-art probe card manufacturing facility located in Hsin Chu, Taiwan.

10/14/2004  October 13, 2004 - EV Group, Scharding, Austria, and Datacon Technology AG, Radfeld, Austria, have agreed to jointly develop and market a new chip-to-wafer bonding platform combining their technologies.

10/13/2004  October 13, 2004 - Freescale Semiconductor Inc. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) have signed an agreement to jointly develop a new generation of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) high-performance transistor front-end technology targeted for the 65nm advanced CMOS process node. The three-year agreement also provides TSMC with manufacturing rights to Freescale's 90nm SOI technology.

10/13/2004  (October 13, 2004) Des Plaines, Ill.—As the WEEE and RoHS directives take effect in Europe, and with the increased production of lead-free products in Asia, lead-free assembly in North America is gaining momentum.