12/10/2003  December 10, 2003 - -- FASL LLC, Sunnyvale, CA, plans to ramp manufacturing capacity for Spansion Flash memory products in 2004 to meet demand from AMD and Fujitsu for wireless products.

12/10/2003  December 10, 2003 - The past week has been busy for high-k materials, with three separate announcements from companies and organizations detailing the progress of their research.

12/10/2003  December 10, 2003 - -- ADE Corp., Westwood, MA, has introduced new tools for inspecting the front, backside, and edges of wafers.

12/10/2003  Texas Instruments Inc. is working with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Lausanne on a chip combining standard semiconductor and single-electron transistors (SET) that could shrink the size and power consumption of computing devices, according to a news release.

12/09/2003  Chuck Black and Kathryn Guarini demonstrated their nanotech breakthrough with strands of pipe-cleaner wire. In a preview of today's announcement, the two IBM researchers explained how they coaxed two different polymers – stringy molecules they represented with different-colored pipe cleaners – to assemble themselves into a honeycombed template of 20-nanometer holes.

12/05/2003  (December 5, 2003) Schärding, Austria—EV Group (EVG), a MEMS, nano and semiconductor wafer processing equipment manufacturer, has entered into a cooperation agreement with AMO GmbH (AMO), on advanced ultraviolet-nanoimprint lithography (UV-NIL).

12/04/2003  December 4, 2003 - Toshiba Corp. and SanDisk reportedly plan to build a facility for producing NAND flash memory chips by 2005

12/04/2003  December 3, 2003 - Semiconductor equipment manufacturers expect 8% sales growth this year to $21.4 billion -- double the increase they predicted just a few months ago -- and nearly 40% growth in 2004, according to the year-end edition of the SEMI Capital Equipment Consensus Forecast.

12/04/2003  December 2, 2003 - Nikon Corp., Belmont, CA, has unveiled plans to introduce ArF immersion lithography equipment, based on its NSR-S307E 193nm lithography tool.

12/04/2003  December 1, 2003 - Singapore's Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. has raised its outlook for 4Q03, thanks to increased demand from communications customers.

12/04/2003  December 1, 2003 - Global orders in October of Japanese semiconductor equipment soared above 100 million yen for the third consecutive month, and are at their highest levels in nearly three years, according to the latest figures from the Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan (SEAJ).

12/04/2003  November 26, 2003 - Toshiba Corp. reportedly plans to invest up to 12 billion yen to boost output at its facilities in Oita, Japan.

12/04/2003  November 25, 2003 - A week after announcing a similar partnership with Dainippon Screen, ASML NV, Veldhoven, The Netherlands, has signed a deal with Tokyo Electron Ltd. to link the companies' lithography and track systems.

12/04/2003  November 28, 2003 - International Sematech, Austin, TX, says it has qualified an ultra-low-k material for dual damascene copper processing at 0.13-micron features, using 193nm lithography on 300mm wafers.

12/04/2003  November 28, 2003 - International Sematech, Austin, TX, plans to form a new consortium of fabs and chipmakers to focus on manufacturing infrastructure, methods, standards, and productivity.

12/04/2003  November 25, 2003 - KLA-Tencor, San Jose, CA, and Soitec, Grenoble, France, are forming a joint program to improve the quality and yield of, and production costs for, silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers.

12/04/2003  November 28, 2003 - Applied Materials recently introduced the SEMVision G2 FIB defect analysis system, touted as the first in-line production tool to integrate several technologies into one system: advanced defect-review scanning electron microscope (SEM), automated focused ion beam (FIB) cross-sectioning, and EDX energy dispersive x-ray analysis capabilities.

12/04/2003  December 4, 2003 - Japan's Super Silicon Crystal Research Institute Corp. has licensed its wafer processing equipment to South Korea's Tera Semicon Corp. and Japan's Shinkugiken Co.

12/04/2003  November 17, 2003 - At its annual analyst meeting, AMD, Sunnyvale, CA, said it expects to report higher 4Q sales for both chips and flash memory, thanks to increased consumer and corporate spending.

12/04/2003  November 21, 2003 - ASML NV, Veldhoven, The Netherlands, and Dainippon Screen Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Kyoto, Japan, have agreed to co-develop methods for linking their track and lithography systems.