01/22/2001  South Portland, Maine--Fairchild Semiconductor International has signed a deal to acquire Intersil Corp.'s discrete power business for $338 million, a move that will make the company one of the world's largest MOSFET suppliers.

01/19/2001  Migdal Haemek, Israel--Tower Semiconductor today announced the signing of an agreement with two major Israeli banks--Bank Leumi and Bank Hapoalim--to secure $550 million of the needed credit line total for the construction of its new fab, known as Fab 2. With this agreement, Tower has secured the $1.1 billion needed to finance the construction. The company now plans to break ground on its 200mm facility on January 31.

01/19/2001  Hsinchu, Taiwan--Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) has selected Applied Materials, Inc.'s Black Diamond chemical vapor deposition (CVD) low-k film for production of its 0.13-micron copper chips. TSMC is also working with Applied Materials to extend Black Diamond technology to its next-generation 0.10-micron devices that are currently in development.

01/18/2001  Belmont, California--Nikon Precision, Inc. (NPI) has released its first application software product that helps improve yield for imaging tools by identifying where die are likely to fail.

01/17/2001  Billerica, Massachusetts--PRI Automation, Inc., a global leader in semiconductor factory automation systems and software, has announced TransFab, a unified material handling system (UMHS) capable of providing fab-wide tool-to-tool wafer delivery in 300mm fabs.

01/16/2001  Santa Clara, California--Zeevo Inc. today announced that it has received highly integrated, single-chip Bluetooth silicon from Tawain Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC). TSMC produced the Bluetooth wafers, which reportedly pack RF, analog, and digital baseband functionality into one integrated device, using its advanced 0.18-micron mixed-signal CMOS process.

01/16/2001  Rousset, France--Atmel Corp.'s FAB7, its leading-edge high-volume wafer fabrication plant in Rousset, France, has been accorded ISO 14001 environmental certification by the accreditation body BVQI. This certification recognizes that all on-site activities conform to strict environmental protection standards, which is of particular significance because FAB7 is located directly in front of Mont Sainte Victoire, one of the most prestigious and environmentally sensitive locations in France.

01/16/2001  Dallas, Texas--A fully-integrated, multi-rate low-power CMOS transmitter/receiver solution for SONET/SDH optical modules with transmission rates up to OC-48 is now available from Texas Instruments Inc.

01/16/2001  Sunnyvale, California--Silicon Storage Technology, Inc. (SST) and Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp. have entered an agreement in which Vanguard will serve as a foundry for SST's 0.18- and 0.13-micron flash memory products based on the company's advanced self-aligned SuperFlash memory technology.

01/16/2001  Chandler, Arizona--Amkor Technology, Inc. is planning to open a semiconductor assembly and test manufacturing facility in China to provide packaged IC components for the Chinese cell phone, PC, and laptop markets. The factory, located in the Waigaogiao Free Trade Zone in Pudong, Shanghai, is expected to deliver its first products during the third quarter of 2001.

01/15/2001  Irvine, California--In response to the increasing demand for streaming media in wireless applications, Toshiba America Electronic Components Inc. (TAEC), with its parent company Toshiba Corp., has announced the availability of a single-chip, low-power MPEG-4 encoding and decoding (CODEC) solution.

01/15/2001  Taoyuan, Taiwan--Nanya Technology Corp. has entered into a next-generation DRAM technology agreement with IBM Corp., in which IBM has granted Nanya a license to its 0.14- and 0.11-micron DRAM processes. This is an extension of a DRAM process technology licensing agreement signed by the two companies in 1998.

01/15/2001  Bernin, France--Seiko Epson has successfully manufactured circuits made on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) UNIBOND material, reports SOITEC. The new circuits will be used by Seiko in a model of its SPRING Drive watch, a high-precision wristwatch.

01/15/2001  Sweden--Micronic Laser Systems AB, a company at the forefront of semiconductor and display laser pattern generators for the production of photomasks to the worldwide electronic industries, today announced an order from Hoya Corp. for its new Micronic Omega6600 laser pattern generation tool.

01/15/2001  Los Altos, California--Rambus Inc. recently reported financial results for its first fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2000. Revenues for the quarter were $34.7 million, up 191% over the same period last year and up 29% from the previous quarter.

01/11/2001  Pebble Beach, California--Despite the recent slowdown in sales of PCs, the market is alive and well, and growing at a healthy clip. In fact, sales should recover in the second half of the year, hitting $41 billion in 2002, compared to $30 billion in 2000. That was the prediction of Hector Ruiz, president and COO of AMD, keynote speaker at SEMI's ISS 2001.

01/10/2001  San Mateo, California--IDS Software Systems (IDS), a leading supplier of platform independent data management and statistical yield analysis software for the semiconductor industry, announced that Philips Semiconductors has awarded it a $7.5 million, multi-year corporate contract to provide data and yield management software and support services for its semiconductor operations worldwide.

01/10/2001  Sunnyvale, California--UMC has developed an enhanced CMOS image sensor process, based on its generic mixed-mode process, to address the needs of today's most sophisticated camera-on-a-chip designers that produce chips for high-end, still-life, and video digital cameras and scanners.

01/10/2001  Glouchester, Massachusetts--Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates, Inc. today announced that it expects to report fiscal first quarter 2001 revenues in the range of $223 to $228 million. In addition, the company advised that it continues to make improvements in its gross margin and to carefully manage its operating expenses.

01/09/2001  Corning, New York--Corning Inc. today announced that it will invest more than $30 million in 2001 to expand production of fluoride crystals in its Canton, NY manufacturing facility. This investment is expected to allow the company to more than double its capacity in fluoride crystals, which are used to make optical microlithography lenses.