03/20/2000  A new liquid metering and vaporization system from Sitek is available to epitaxial wafer manufacturers for controlling silicon during deposition.

03/16/2000  In December, Ibis will add an RF inductively coupled ion source to improve throughput of its Ibis 2000 SIMOX-SOI implanter, used in silicon-on-wafer semiconductor manufacturing. Anticipating a 20 percent increase in throughput for its implanter, currently under development at the University of California, Ibis officials say they expect the new technology will also extend their product's maintenance intervals.

03/15/2000  Photronics sees its international ties strengthen with its acquisition of Taiwan's Precision Semiconductor Mask Corp.

03/15/2000  Intrabay Automation, a factory automation startup, will partner with Mannesmann Rexroth to bring its Class 1 wafer stocker to market.

03/14/2000  International SEMATECH has evaluated the success of low-k dielectric films to produce one-level copper damascene test structures. These tests are the first phase of such work, and focused on films with a dielectric constant between 3.0 to 2.1. In addition, the organization also tested a number of tools used to fabricate devices using these materials.

03/13/2000  Silterra's purchase of $150 million in equipment for its new foundry will support the startup's plan to increase production to 30,000 8-inch wafers per month by 2002, officials say. One purchase already made by the company is Asyst Technology Inc.'s SMIF-LPT product line. Silterra has also contracted with ASM Lithography (ASML) as its lithography supplier.

03/09/2000  The industry may experience a shortage of raw 8-inch silicon wafers, the end result of which will slow the evolution to 300-mm production, according to 8-inch wafer producers.

03/01/2000  The HP 95000 auto-test contactor is designed for use with the HP 95000 tester and provides 1 GHz performance with less than 1 ns pulse widths for testing direct rambus DRAM. The contacts feature 0.75 mm pitch, 1.3 to 1.6 nH self inductance, 0.02 to 0.09 capacitance and 9.3 GHz bandwidth at 1.0 dB for accurate test results from -55 to 150°C. The contactor uses a proprietary socket design with interchangeable package inserts that allow the contactor to be refigured for different packages by c

03/01/2000  The 3M .8 mm Board-to-Board Straight Surface Mount Plug and Socket Interconnect System is a 200 position, PCB stacking interconnect. It is parallel mounted and has snap-in connections and polarized contacts. It features beryllium-copper alloy active contacts with bellows design, a high insertion/withdrawal rate, a 1.8 mm mating length and a 5.0 mm PCB stacking height.

03/01/2000  The SMD-0.5 package is said to have two times the power-handling capability as the 18-pin leadless chip carrier. Designed to accommodate up to a die size 3, the newproduct reportedly can be used with any RAD-Hard MOSFET, HEXFRED diodes, Schottky or standard HEXFET power MOSFET device. This compact surface mount package comes in at 1.0 g and dimensions of 0.296 x 0.400 x 0.115 in.

03/01/2000  As electronics applications shrink in size, integrated circuit (IC) packaged devices must be reduced both in footprint and in thickness. The main motivation for the development of smaller packages is the demand for portable communications devices, such as memory cards, smart cards, cellular telephones, and portable computing and gaming devices. End-users of such electronic devices are interested in greater functionality per unit volume, not relatively simplistic metrics, such as transistors per

03/01/2000  The NSX-100 is a new addition to the NSX series of automated micro defect inspection systems for wafer and die. It is said to offer an improvement in inspection time of up to 100 percent compared with previous industry standards. With high resolution image capturing technology and enhanced illumination techniques and optics, inspection time in a typical 8-inch wafer application reportedly can be cut from 120 to 60 sec.

02/25/2000  The notion of sharing risk is giving epitaxy specialists like start-up GlobiTech's dedicated CMOS epitaxial foundry a viable niche in the chip making business. While semiconductor manufacturers recover from the recent economic nightmare and bravely ponder fab expansion, the notion of sharing the costs of developing products under 0.18?n;m in size is becoming very attractive.

02/17/2000  Hoping to catch the e-business wave crashing over the chip industry, business-to-business network provider AvantCom Network wants to link semiconductor fabs with their tool suppliers, with the goal of allowing equipment firms to retrieve real-time tool status and parametric data from their installed tool base.

02/11/2000  In an effort to enhance its lithography module control offerings, KLA-Tencor plans to acquire FINLE Technologies, a 10-year old developer of lithography simulation and data analysis software.

02/11/2000  Just one week after a federal grand jury indicted McDowell & Co., San Carlos, CA, for allegedly stealing confidential blueprints from Applied Materials, the equipment giant said it has settled its civil suit with the parts supplier.

02/10/2000  In yet another boost to capital spending, Japan chipmaker Hitachi said it will invest 150 billion yen (about US$1.4 billion) in the semiconductor field in fiscal year 2000.

02/01/2000  SAN JOSE, CALIF. - The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) has recently announced its predictions for industry growth. SIA forecasts that 2000-2001 growth rates will exceed 20 percent, part of a strong surge in growth overall from 1999-2002. The trade group predicts that the worldwide semiconductor industry will grow 15 percent with sales topping $144 billion in 1999, marking the first sustained period of growth since 1995. Sales are expected to surge 21 percent to $174 billion in 2000. Con

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02/01/2000  InterWorks Computer Products, a provider of modular solutions to telecom, internetworking and embedded subsystems, has formed a strategic partnership with Houston`s BP Microsystems. The latter firm, which markets a range of engineering and production device programmers, will work with InterWorks to augment its flash memory support services in the areas of programming, test and verification.