06/28/2004  June 28, 2004 - California Micro Devices, Milpitas, CA, a supplier of application-specific analog devices, has signed a deal with Japan's Sanyo Electric Co. to add wafer-processing capacity.

06/24/2004  (June 24, 2004) San Jose, Calif.—The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) says that proposed rule changes in the accounting for stock options will not bring greater clarity to financial statements and urged the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to conduct field tests before enacting the proposed rule.

06/23/2004  June 23, 2004 - Applied Materials Inc. has agreed to team with Phoenix Silicon International of Hsinchu, Taiwan, to provide enhanced 300mm test wafer reclaim services.

06/22/2004  (June 22, 2004) Herndon, Va.—The National Electronics Manufacturing Initiative's (NEMI's) Component and Board Marking Project recently made recommendations for the identification of electronic components and board assemblies that have been modified for use in lead-free assembly processes.

06/22/2004  June 22, 2004 - Cypress Semiconductor Corp., San Jose, CA, has agreed to acquire FillFactory NV, a Belgium-based developer of active-pixel CMOS image sensor technology, for $100 million in cash.

06/22/2004  June 22, 2004 - Wafer manufacturer Siltronic AG has opened the doors of its 300mm facility in Freiberg, Germany, after 18 months of construction.

06/21/2004  June 21, 2004 - The first tools should be arriving shortly at Photronics Inc.'s Austin, TX, facility, the company said today, as it outlined its plans and timing for the installation of advanced reticle manufacturing and process technology necessary to support semiconductor manufacturers building ICs with feature sizes for the 65nm node.

06/17/2004  June 17, 2004 - Renesas Technology Corp., the chipmaking JV between Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric, said it plans to restructure its frontend manufacturing business, resulting in the closure of Renesas Semiconductor Europe, the company's frontend facility in Alsdorf, Germany, by the end of this year.

06/16/2004  June 16, 2004 - Sopra, a French supplier of metrology tools for thin films, has licensed ellipsometric porosimetry (EP) patents from European research center IMEC for a metrology tool it's unveiling later this year.

06/16/2004  June 16, 2004 - Memory firm Elpida Memory Inc. and the Japanese business of Micron Technology Inc. have petitioned the Japanese government to impose countervailing duties on imports of DRAM chips from Hynix.

06/16/2004  June 16, 2004 - Demand fell for the second consecutive month in May, but an increase in shipments kept alive a nine-month streak of parity levels, according to the latest data from VLSI Research.

06/16/2004  June 16, 2004 - SEMI has reported that worldwide semiconductor manufacturing equipment billings reached US$9.14B in the first quarter of 2004. The figure is 65 percent above the same quarter a year ago and 42 percent above the billings figure for the fourth quarter of 2003.

06/14/2004  June 14, 2004 - Intel Corp. said its Fab 24 facility in Leixlip, Ireland, has begun production of 300mm wafers using 90nm process technology, joining the company's other 300mm facilities in Oregon and New Mexico.

06/14/2004  June 14, 2004 - TSMC said it has boosted production at its Fab 6 facility to a record 70,000 200mm wafers/month, higher than its planned 2Q04 capacity, and also that its Fab 14 300mm plant has achieved high yields earlier than expected.

06/14/2004  (June 17, 2004) Minneapolis — August Technology Corp. has received multiple orders from a leading Chinese foundry.

06/14/2004  June 14, 2004 -- At Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC)'s Fab 6, which accounts for 16% of the company's total wafer capacity, production has exceeded 70,000 200mm wafers/month.

06/14/2004  (June 14, 2004) Des Plaines, Ill. and Phoenix — In a joint collaboration, Kester and FlipChip International (FCI) have worked side by side to introduce SE-CURE 7501, a low void wafer bumping solder paste formula designed for FCI's proprietary wafer bumping application.

06/11/2004  (June 15, 2004) Piscataway, N.J.—The IEEE Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology (CPMT) Society recently announced its 2004 award recipients, recognizing them for their distinguished performance in their individual fields and for their dedication to the Society.

06/11/2004  June 11, 2004 -- ICOS Vision Systems Corp. NV, Heverlee, Belgium, has acquired the 2D wafer inspection business of Siemens AG for a cash consideration of 6.25 million Euro.

06/10/2004  June 10, 2004 - International SEMATECH has released its top technical challenges for 2005, choosing to emphasize R&D on advanced gate stacks, 193nm immersion and EUV lithography, low-k dielectrics, and 3D interconnects.