03/25/2004  MARCH 25--Oxfordshire, England-- Bookham Technology plc continues to prepare for the opening of its advanced manufacturing facility in Shenzhen, China, a measure that is part of its Asia Pacific strategy that has yielded revenue growth in the last two years.

03/23/2004  (March 23, 2004) Chandler, Ariz.—Amkor Technology Inc., CASIO COMPUTER Co. Ltd. and CASIO MICRONICS Co. Ltd. have established business and technology licensing agreements for assembly and test of wafer-level semiconductor packages.

03/23/2004  March 23, 2004 - Intel Corp., Santa Clara, CA, has named 16 winners of its 2003 Supplier Continuous Quality Improvement award, who scored top marks in a list of performance achievements.

03/23/2004  March 23, 2004 - Lattice Semiconductor Corp., Hillsboro, OR, and Fujitsu have signed a deal that will bring up to $200 million into Fujitsu's planned $1.5 billion 300mm fab in Mie Prefecture.

03/19/2004  (March 19, 2004) San Jose, Calif.—North American-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.31 billion in orders in February 2004 and a book-to-bill ratio of 1.14, according to SEMI.

03/19/2004  WASHINGTON--March 18, 2004--The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) announced it will proceed with a retrospective epidemiologic study to investigate whether or not wafer fabrication workers in the U.S. chip industry have experienced higher rates of cancer than non-fabrication workers.

03/19/2004  March 19, 2004 - Winbond Electronics Corp. and Etron Technology Inc. reportedly have received "lucrative" orders from Intel and Sharp to bundle their memory chips with multichip package products in next-generation handsets.

03/19/2004  March 19, 2004 - China's chipmaking capacity is still well short of demand, and is not contributing to overcapacity in capital investment, according to SMIC president and CEO Richard Chang.

03/18/2004  March 18, 2004 - The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) has agreed to conduct a retrospective epidemiological study to investigate whether workers in US wafer fabs have a higher risk of cancer.

03/18/2004  March 18, 2004 - The highly anticipated IPO of Chinese chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) on March 17 proved to be a disappointment.

03/18/2004  Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) has selected SUSS MicroTec AG's (News, Web) wafer and direct bonding equipment for expanding its MEMS and nanoscale activities, according to a news release.

03/17/2004  March 17, 2004 - Worldwide orders and sales of semiconductor equipment exceeded expectations in February 2004 but were below January's levels, according to VLSI Research.

03/16/2004  March 16, 2004 - The European Union has approved government aid from France and Portugal to be used to support Infineon Technologies AG and Altis Semiconductor, its JV with IBM.

03/12/2004  March 12, 2004 - Sharp reportedly plans to invest ¥27 billion ($199.3 million) in its fiscal year 2005, targeting production upgrades for flash memory and image sensors.

03/12/2004  March 12, 2004 - The highly-anticipated IPO for China's Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., initially pegged at $1.5 billion, may top $1.80 million after being priced at the high range of estimates

03/11/2004  March 11, 2004 - Strong demand for semiconductors drove Korean exports of IT goods to $5.72 billion in February, an increase of more than 50% year-on-year, according to data from the Ministry of Information and Communication.

03/11/2004  March 11, 2004 - Aixtron AG, a German supplier of equipment for semiconductor epitaxy, has entered into a three-year deal with IMEC to jointly develop atomic-vapor deposition materials for high-k and metal gate stacks.

03/11/2004  March 11, 2004 - Singapore's Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing has raised its projections for 1Q04 revenue to $279-$285 million, higher than previous estimates of 21%-24% sequential growth.

03/10/2004  March 10, 2004 - Recif, a French provider of wafer handling equipment, reported a 26% drop in 2003 revenues due to customers' "wait and see attitude" and currency exchange fluctuations, but sees renewed activity and orders so far in 2004.

03/09/2004  March 9, 2004 - Royal Philips Electronics of The Netherlands and Japan's Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. have joined IMEC's sub-45nm CMOS research program.