05/01/2003  There are five commonly used methods of wafer bumping for flip chip attach, three of which are challenging and expensive: Stud bumps formed by ball bonding using gold wire; plated gold bumps using electrolytic or electroless gold; and plating solder bumping by electrolytic or electroless solder plating.

04/30/2003  April 30, 2003 - Santa Clara, CA - Applied Materials, Inc., a supplier of wafer fabrication solutions to the global semiconductor industry, said that its board of directors has elected Michael Splinter as president, CEO, and a member of the board of directors, effective immediately.

04/30/2003  When scores of business and academic researchers convened at MIT recently, they agreed on one point: All those nanoscale sketches on the white board look promising. But this meeting tried to answer nanotech's more vexing question: "Now that we know what we want to build, how do we actually build it?"

04/29/2003  ARPIL 29--TAIPEI, Taiwan--- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. say its first-quarter net profit fell 34 percent from last year, but the world's largest contract chipmaker soundly beat analyst expectations and pointed to a second-quarter pickup in demand.

04/25/2003  April 25, 2003-- Seoul, Korea -- Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. said today it planned to invest $500 million to upgrade its chip plant in Texas, looking to stay ahead of its rivals in the face of a prolonged slump in global chip prices.

04/23/2003  April 23, 2003 - Wilmington, MA - NEXX Systems has completed the acquisition of All Wet Technologies Inc. (AWT). AWT has developed electro-deposition technology for metal and photoresist. Arthur Keigler, president of AWT, joins NEXX Systems as VP of technology and board member.

04/21/2003  APRIL 21--TOKYO, Japan--Fujitsu Limited and Fujitsu VLSI Limited have developed a spread-spectrum clock generator (SSCG) system chip that achieves the world's lowest power requirement and electromagnetic interference (EMI) levels.

04/21/2003  APRIL 21--TAIPEI--The Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) reported yesterday the successful development of an "anti-virus" mask.

04/21/2003  April 21, 2003 - Tokyo, Japan - Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) and Sony Corp. said they would invest a total of approximately 200 billion yen ($1.7 billion) over three fiscal years from 2003 to 2005 in the installation of a semiconductor fabrication line to build chips with 65nm process on 300mm wafers.

04/14/2003  April 14, 2003 - Santa Cruz, CA - New data from the latest World Fab Watch, by Strategic Marketing Associates (SMA), indicates that competition is heating up to provide sub-180nm foundry services among a variety of players. The result is a threat of overcapacity by 2005.

04/09/2003  April 9, 2003 - San Diego, CA - Applied Micro Circuits Corp. is set to realign its global operations in the face of continued softness in its end markets. As of January 1, 2003, the company had 912 employees in its worldwide work force. The company expects to have approximately 626 employees by the end of the calendar year, a 31% reduction.

04/08/2003  April 8, 2003 - Taipei, Taiwan - Nanya Technology Corp. expects its capital expenditure this year to be US$670 million, an upward revision from the US$450 million the Taiwanese memory chipmaker projected in December.

04/08/2003  April 8, 2003 - Fremont, CA - Asyst Technologies Inc. and Mattson Technology, Inc. have penned a development alliance to integrate Asyst's next-generation unified atmospheric equipment frontend with Mattson's 300mm rapid thermal processing (RTP) equipment.

04/07/2003  APRIL 7--HENDERSON, Nevada--Emergency Filtration Products, Inc. has entered into a definitive agreement with Taiwan-based Weise Labs, Inc., which will distribute and sell EFP's new 2H Nano-Enhanced Environmental Mask to the Asian markets.

04/07/2003  April 7, 2003 - San Jose, CA - The Fabless Semiconductor Association (FSA), a semiconductor trade organization, has announced the results of a joint research effort focused on identifying supply chain issues impacting fabless success. The Fabless Supply Chain Study was commissioned by the FSA and conducted by Lions Peak LLC and Santa Clara U.'s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

04/07/2003  A funny thing happened to Integrated Micromachines Inc. on the way to creating an all-optical switch: The bottom fell out of telecom. So, the Monrovia, Calif.-based company switched gears and diversified its business. Today, IMMI is focused on building low-pressure sensors and gyros, and demand is growing quickly for its foundry services.

04/03/2003  APRIL 3--SINGAPORE--Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd. said it has not shut down any of its facilities but it is ready to do so if any of its employees becomes infected by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

04/03/2003  APRIL 2--BOULDER--Colo--Particle Measuring Systems says its SlurryAlert provides continuous online measurements of undiluted slurry used in Copper CMP.

04/03/2003  April 3, 2003 - Singapore - Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd. is prepared to temporarily shut down production lines in the immediate vicinity of any staff exposed to the deadly flu-like virus, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.

04/02/2003  MEMS manufacturers are generally still years behind their colleagues in the conventional integrated circuit industry when it comes to feature size. While everybody seems to be focusing on next-generation lithography tools that enable nanometer-size resolution, ASML has a new tool targeted at MEMS.