04/13/2004  April 13, 2004 - Applied Micro Circuits Corp. (AMCC), San Diego, CA, has agreed to purchase IP and assets associated with IBM's 400 series of embedded PowerPC products for $227 million in cash.

04/13/2004  April 13, 2004 - TSMC has realigned its process technologies into two classes of "technology platforms" in order to add other features and services, and claims to have produced the industry's first fully-functional 65nm SRAM module.

04/12/2004  April 12, 2004 - A power outage hitting the Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park on April 10, did not take a serious toll on some of its semiconductor occupants, but nevertheless it may boost retail prices of DRAM chips made there.

04/12/2004  April 12, 2004 - Novellus Systems Inc., San Jose, CA, has acquired Angstron Systems Inc., Santa Clara, CA, a supplier of atomic layer deposition (ALD) technology, for an undisclosed amount.

04/12/2004  April 12, 2004 - Sumitomo Mitsubishi Silicon, the JV between Sumitomo Metal Industries Ltd. and Mitsubishi Materials Corp., reportedly plans to invest 30 billion yen to double its 300mm wafer output

04/08/2004  April 9, 2004 - Micron Technology Inc., Boise, ID, is poised to achieve profitability in 2004 -- and stay there, according to CEO Steve Appleton.

04/07/2004  April 7, 2004 - Starting later this year, Intel Corp. will eliminate approximately 95% of the lead used in its processors and chipsets,

04/05/2004  April 5, 2004 - Infineon Technologies AG reportedly plans to shift capacity away from its DRAM operations in order to focus on production of logic chips.

04/05/2004  April 5, 2004 - NEC Electronics Corp. is expanding 300mm wafer production at the site of its subsidiary NEC Yamagata Ltd, adjacent to an existing 300mm wafer fab line.

04/02/2004  April 2, 2004 - NEC Electronics Corp. reportedly is reorganizing its business units to boost its 90nm manufacturing capabilities and consolidate testing and assembly operations.

04/01/2004  April 1, 2004 - Isonics Corp., Golden, CO, has agreed to acquire the silicon wafer manufacturing business and assets from EnCompass Materials Group Ltd. (EMG), a Vancouver, WA-based provider of silicon test wafers and recycling services.

04/01/2004  (April 1, 2004) Chandler, Ariz.—Amkor Technology Inc.'s James "Mark" Bird, technology fellow and senior director of Technical Marketing, has been elected chair of JEDEC's Mechanical (Package Outlines) Standardization Committee, JC-11. This committee covers mechanical standardization of a broad range of packaging formats.

04/01/2004  In what may be a sign of better times ahead, Nikon Precision Inc. (Belmont, Calif.) has announced it will build a worldwide training center aimed at meeting demand from English-speaking countries.

04/01/2004  Many companies in electronics are moving operations to Asia with mixed results. Therefore, we spent time talking to a few in the back-end assembly side to see what precipitated their actions.

03/31/2004  March 31, 2004 - Samsung has unveiled new embedded flash technology based on 0.13-micron CMOS, for system-on-a-chip and ASIC designs.

03/30/2004  Put yourself in Polychromix’s shoes. You endured the telecom shakeout. You raised some venture money. You recently rolled out a product and have some orders. It would appear to be time to set up offshore manufacturing. Instead, the 25-person optical equipment startup is expected to unveil a new manufacturing facility in Wilmington, Mass., today.

03/30/2004  No one should accuse Cornell University of trying to win friends in the White House with large gifts. The Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility produced a nanofabricated etching on a silicon chip that includes six full-color U.S. flags and 15 images of the White House.

03/29/2004  March 29, 2004 - SEMATECH and the state of Texas have agreed to launch a five-year, $200 million project to accelerate the development of next-generation semiconductors, as well as support projects for nanotechnology and other related areas.

03/26/2004  March 26, 2004 - Taiwan's PowerChip Semiconductor Corp. (PSC) may reach the world's largest 12-in. wafer capacity with its plans to boost fab output from 35,000 wafers/month to 45,000 by the end of this year.

03/26/2004  March 26, 2004 - Singapore chipmaker Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd. began moving in equipment to its $3 billion, 300mm Fab 7 facility on March 26, with tool order shipments being reported by ASML, Axcelis, and Applied Materials.