06/10/2004  The German city of Dresden is one of the country's shining stars with its plans to create a nanotech research center focusing on advanced chip development are successful. The government announced this week that it is in advanced talks in hopes of creating the center.

06/09/2004  June 9, 2004 -International SEMATECH has selected German lithography firm Carl Zeiss SMT to develop a defect review tool for 193nm immersion lithography photomasks.

06/09/2004  June 9, 2004 -- Elpida Memory Inc. plans to invest up to 500 billion yen over three years to construct what would be the world's largest DRAM facility.

06/08/2004  June 8, 2004 -- Cadence Design Systems Inc. and ASML MaskTools have agreed to a multi-year, multimillion dollar software licensing and joint development agreement for advanced RET software solutions.

06/08/2004  Cavendish Kinetics, a Holland-based semiconductor company working to integrate MEMS devices into standard CMOS processes, announced its Nanomech technology for creating submicron structures for use as computer memories.

06/07/2004  June 7, 2004 - Elpida Memory Inc. has extended the terms and duration of its licenses to SDRAM and DDR DRAM patents from Rambus Inc., Los Altos, CA.

06/07/2004  June 7, 2004 -- Nantero Inc., Woburn, MA, says that it is teaming with LSI Logic Corp., Milpitas, CA, to develop semiconductor process technology, expediting the effective utilization of carbon nanotubes in CMOS fabrication.

06/04/2004  June 4, 2004 - In its mid-quarter update on Thursday, Intel tightened its outlook for 2Q04 revenue to $8.0-$8.2 billion, at the higher end of previous predictions of $7.6-$8.2 billion, due to increasing strength in its flash memory business.

06/03/2004  June 3, 2004 - A new group has been formed to create open standards for unifying IC design and manufacturing information, in order to counter increasing costs and complexities associated with design for manufacturability (DFM).

06/03/2004  June 2, 2004 - April proved true to its historical roots as a strong month for the industry, as worldwide chip sales continued to venture into territory not seen in four years, according to the latest data from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA).

06/03/2004  June 2, 2004 -- Novellus Systems Inc. has signed an agreement to acquire Peter Wolters AG, a privately held manufacturer of high-precision machine manufacturing tools headquartered in Rendsburg, Germany

06/03/2004 

06/01/2004  May 31, 2004 -- Renesas Technology Corp. has purchased two semiconductor plants located in the Tokyo suburb of Ome from Hitachi Ltd. for 1.2 billion yen, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun recently reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.

06/01/2004  Extraction Systems Inc. (www.extractionsystemsinc.com), a provider of molecular contamination control and measurement products, recently doubled its manufacturing capacity at its headquarters here in anticipation of a market upswing and changes in the competitive landscape.

06/01/2004  Gordon Moore's 1965 observation that the number of transistors per square inch of silicon was doubling every year has, with modest variations, continued to characterize growth in the semiconductor industry.

05/28/2004  May 28, 2004 -- Due to expanded facilities at San Francisco's Moscone Center, the front-end and final manufacturing segments of Semicon West will be reunited in San Francisco next year, according to Semi, the organization that runs the event.

05/27/2004  May 27, 2004 -- Applied Materials Inc. and Praxair Electronics have announced a joint initiative program to streamline fab operations for semiconductor manufacturers.

05/27/2004  May 27, 2004 -- Air Liquide America has signed an exclusive 15-year carrier gas supply agreement for Texas Instruments' 300mm semiconductor manufacturing facility to be constructed in Richardson, TX.

05/26/2004  May 26, 2004 -- STMicroelectronics today announced that ST, CEA-Leti, and AIXTRON have developed an advanced process technology for the creation of ultra-thin transistor-gate-insulation layers for low-power applications at the 65nm and 45nm CMOS transistor technology nodes.

05/25/2004  Advanced Diamond was one of three small tech business plans to squeak into MIT’s famed $50K Entrepreneurship Competition this year, with its diamond-copper composite that acts as a coolant for microchip components. Other small-tech finalists were Active Spectrum, using MEMS to build a transceiver for wireless devices, and LumArray, with a nanoscale lithography technique that eliminates costly design masks.