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Nov. 28, 2006 — The Technical University of Denmark (DTU) has placed a $11.5 million dollar order for seven FEI microscopes that will form the core of the University’s new Center for Electron Nanoscopy (CEN).

The order represents the largest product sale ever for FEI and includes two Titan scanning/transmission electron microscopes (S/TEMs), a Tecnai 20S-Twin TEM, a Helios NanoLab 600 DualBeam, a Quanta 200 3D ESEM DualBeam, a Quanta FEG SEM and an Inspect S low-vacuum SEM.

The range of equipment will be utilized for a wide spectrum of advanced research conducted by DTU’s researchers and companies that operate at the university.

The company said one of the Titan S/TEMs will be equipped with an environmental chamber and will be used for collaboration between DTU and FEI to advance environmental TEM (ETEM) applications for in-situ catalyst observations.

Such studies could play an important role in catalyst research and development for alternative fuel cells, environmental catalysis (clean air and water), and petrochemical industries. In addition, some of the equipment will be used to teach entry level SEM applications for the university’s curriculum.

“Uniquely, one of the Titans at DTU will combine aberration correction and monochromation with the ability to introduce gases into the electron microscope,” said commented Rafal Dunin-Borkowski, director of the new center, in a prepared statement. “This will allow catalyst materials to be studied in their working environment with ultimate spatial resolution. Such capabilities are a big step forward for the development of new materials and nanotechnology in general.”

Installation of the systems is targeted for the second half of 2007 and DTU’s Center for Electron Nanoscopy is scheduled to open at the end of 2007.

Nov. 28, 2006 — Veeco Instruments Inc. announced that it has received four orders for its R&D Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) systems. The orders extend across the Veeco R&D product line including a GEN20, GEN930, GEN II, and GEN III.

The systems ordered are planned for a wide-range of development efforts at leading research groups in Europe, Japan, and the United States. The GEN20, the latest development platform addition to the product line, will manufacture quantum dots.

Similar to other successful systems operating in oxides, the GEN930 will support a leading institute in the development of next generation logic devices. The GEN II and GEN III systems will support III-V and high mobility developments, respectively.

“These orders show the breadth of our R&D MBE systems for a diverse set of applications from traditional III-V materials to oxides and quantum dots,” said Jeffrey Hohn, vice president, general manager, Veeco MBE operations, in a prepared statement. “The GEN20 system order further solidifies the success of this product as a scalable platform from development through pilot production.”

The GEN20 MBE system is a 4-inch system that can be upgraded from a manual wafer transfer configuration to a system with an automated cluster tool, enabling 24×7 operation.

The company says the flexibility of the pumping configuration, wafer handling options and high wafer throughput make it an excellent choice for government labs and pilot production environments. Veeco says the continued development and advancement of the GEN II and GEN III systems, with their large installed base and proven track record, for high mobility devices and general III-V research make them a natural selection for these applications. The GEN930 configured for oxides is intended as a powerful, and affordable system for emerging oxide applications.

Nov. 28, 2006 — STMicroelectronics, one of the world’s largest semiconductor suppliers and an industry leader in MEMS devices, announced it has inaugurated a new 200mm (8-inch) semiconductor wafer fabrication line dedicated to MEMS devices at its manufacturing site at Agrate, near Milan, Italy.

The company says using 200mm wafers will reduce unit costs and accelerate both the expansion of current applications and the development of new MEMS markets.

“This significant investment in a 200mm production line underlines ST’s commitment to maintaining a competitive manufacturing base in Italy,” said Pietro Palella, general manager, STMicroelectronics Italy, in a prepared statement. “As we move established manufacturing technologies to the Far East, in keeping with the global manufacturing trend, we are also continually capitalizing on the intellectual talents of Europe. This new facility reinforces ST’s position at the leading edge of one of the world’s most exciting markets. Our MEMS technology was originally developed in our nearby Castelletto design center, which is still our powerhouse for MEMS innovation, and we are proud that Agrate now hosts the world’s most advanced MEMS production line.”

The inauguration event featured a round-table discussion of Italy’s role in high-tech industries by leading Italian academics, writers and industrialists, an overview of MEMS markets and opportunities presented by Benedetto Vigna, general manager of ST’s MEMS business unit, and a customer application example inside laptop computers, presented by Hisao Tsukazawa, group manager of Toshiba’s PC development center.

“With a forecasted growth of around 100 percent in the five years from 2005 to 2010, the MEMS market is one of the most exciting segments of the semiconductor industry and the new state-of-the-art production line we have started in Agrate will allow us to further build on our leadership position in this area,” said Benedetto Vigna.

So far, ST has invested approximately $40 million in transforming a former 150mm (6-inch) production area into a leading-edge MEMS production line. The new line, which currently occupies approximately 1,300 square meters and employs more than 100 people, is fully dedicated to MEMS devices, and also supports the MEMS R&D activities based in Castelletto. The area will be further increased to 2500 square meters in line with market demand.

The company says the new MEMS production line will manufacture the hundreds of millions of parts of innovative accelerometers, gyroscopes, miniature microphones and pressure sensors required to serve the expanding market needs.

Nov. 27, 2006 — Heidelberg Instruments announced the sale of an advanced DWL200 maskless laser lithography system to the Angstrom Microstructure Laboratory of the University of Uppsala, Sweden.

The DWL200 system will enable the user to expose sub micron structures on photoresist, with an active write area of up to 200 mm by 200 mm.

“The DWL 200 lithography system will constitute an important upgrade of the in-house mask making and direct writing capabilities at the Angstrom Microstructure Laboratory (MSL),” said Stefan Nygren, lab director of the Angstrom Microstructure Laboratory, in a prepared statement. “The MST / MEMS activities at this multidisciplinary resource for micro- / nanotechnology and materials science span from life science to space applications, with a critical need for fast turnaround cycles. The new system is equally important to strengthen MSL as a national node for academic mask fabrication in Sweden.”

Nov. 22, 2006 — SUSS MicroTec, the Munich, Germany-based supplier of precision manufacturing and test equipment for the semiconductor and emerging markets, announced that the University of Alberta’s NanoFab has selected its new ELAN CB6L wafer bonding equipment for its research and production activities.

The NanoFab is an open access micro and nano fabrication facility which is currently being used by more than 130 research groups from the University of Alberta, other Canadian Universities and industry. The SUSS ELAN CB6L manual bonder will be used in nanotechnology research, pressure sensors for the oil industry, and RF MEMS switches for wireless applications.

The ELAN CB6L manual wafer bonder is designed for research, development, and pre-production wafer bonding markets. It has the same core technology as the SUSS fully automated bonders — including precise temperature and force control during bonding, as well as computer controlled wafer processing. It is intended for MEMS, optoelectronic, advanced packaging, and SOI applications.

Nov. 22, 2006 — Innos, the UK-based nanotech research and development company, said it is providing integration engineering support and prototyping services for the UK Framework 6 Network of Excellence SiNANO project.

The consortium is funded by the EU, with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) providing additional access to the Innos fabrication facility to the different UK academic partners. The underlying principle of the project is to explore different technology routes and achieve very high speed, silicon-based nanoscale devices, which can be adopted in the future engineering of ICs.

Each partner in the SiNANO project provides the different areas of expertise required in developing these advanced devices using basic materials science, from the design and fabrication through to characterization and device modeling. The research will aim to enhance device performance and integration.

In order to support the four main UK partners, Innos has set up an internal task force led by Dr. Riccardo Varrazza, commercial integration engineer at Innos’ Southampton headquarters. A team of engineers directed by Dr. Enrico Gili, process engineer at Innos, is developing and managing the engineering and fabrication of the prototype devices. This is intended to allow Innos to focus on the project management and integration engineering issues of the work carried out with each partner within the SiNANO project, while the academics focus on the research.

“Even though each partner is investigating a different area of nanoscale silicon application, our engineers are able to provide prototyping for the different devices for each partner,” said Gili in a prepared statement, “so that they can concentrate on the research elements.”

“Achieving the production of IC components at nanometric dimensions could herald a revolution in IC technology, involving the integration of nanoscale CMOS and emerging post-CMOS logic and memory devices,” said Varrazza in a prepared statement.

The four academic partners being supported by Innos are the Universities of Warwick, Southampton, Cambridge and Newcastle.

The University of Warwick, headed by Prof. Evan Parker and Prof. Terry Wall is focusing on the investigation of the properties of Silicon-Germanium (SiGe) and its development, through a set of oxidization processes and a CMOS batch.

Dr Douglas J.Paul of the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge and his team of researchers are attempting to integrate SiGe quantum devices with strained-Si CMOS.

Prof. Antony O’Neal team is already working on strained Si Heterojunction Bipolar Transistors (HBT) and will soon be developing novel Strained Si CMOS.

The team at the University of Southampton headed by Prof. Peter Ashburn is tackling vertical gate Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistors (MOSFETS) for use in ‘ambient intelligence’ technology, and post-CMOS devices that look at ways of extending the life of traditional CMOS devices.

Nov. 22, 2006 — SEMI reported that worldwide semiconductor manufacturing equipment billings reached $10.97 billion in the third quarter of 2006. The billings figure is 14 percent higher than the second quarter of 2006 and 38 percent above the same quarter a year ago. The data is gathered in cooperation with the Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan (SEAJ) from more than 150 global equipment companies that provide data on a monthly basis.

SEMI also reported worldwide semiconductor equipment bookings of US$11.62 billion in the third quarter of 2006. The figure is 51 percent above the same quarter a year ago, 5 percent below the bookings figure for the second quarter of 2006.

“Worldwide billings for the third quarter of 2006 reached the highest levels since early 2001,” said Stanley T. Myers, president and CEO of SEMI, in a prepared statement. “The third quarter results serve as further indication that the industry will experience over 20 percent growth in 2006.”

The quarterly billings data by region in millions of U.S. dollars, year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter growth rates by region are as follows:


Region      3Q 2006  2Q 2006  3Q 2005  3Q06/2Q06  3Q06/3Q05
                                         (Q-o-Q)    (Y-o-Y)
Europe          860      954      698       -10%       23%
China           845      593      390        42%      117%
Japan         2,667    1,924    2,477        39%        8%
North America 1,770    1,836    1,402        -4%       26%
Korea         1,947    1,518      992        28%       96%
Taiwan        1,857    1,763    1,296         5%       43%
ROW           1,022    1,007      720         1%       42%
Total        10,967    9,594    7,976        14%       38%
Source: SEMI/SEAJ November 2006
Note: Figures may not add due to rounding.

Nov. 21, 2006 — Eyelit Inc., a San Jose, Calif., manufacturing software provider for visibility, control and coordination of manufacturing operations for the electronics, life sciences, MEMS and semiconductor industries, announced that Touchdown Technologies, a developer and manufacturer of advanced MEMS probecards, has purchased Eyelit’s Enterprise Manufacturing Execution suite to manage and control its production operations.

Eyelit said it now has more than ten prominent MEMS and start-up manufacturers who use Eyelit’s manufacturing solution to improve and control operations. Phase I will include MES , Data Collection, SPC and tool tracking deployment at two sites, one MEMS fab and one ceramic substrates.

Nov. 21, 2006 — Intematix Corp., a Fremont, Calif., materials developer and provider, announced it has raised $16.5 million in a Series C venture capital financing round led by Crosslink Capital and Samsung Ventures.

Additional participants included new investor Presidio STX (a Sumitomo Corp. subsidiary), and existing investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson, East Gate Capital and Pacifica Fund.

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The company says the funding will be used for product line and market expansion, as well as intensified materials research and development.

Intematix is best known for its solid state lighting and display phosphors. “We’ve experienced a 300 percent increase in our phosphor revenues alone from last year to this,” said CEO Magnus Ryde in a prepared statement. He said that growth is providing the company with leverage across all of its material discovery fronts.

Intematix’s top-down design and rapid prototyping process uses combinatorial techniques to synthesize very large numbers of material combinations. This synthesis, and the characterization process that follows, is massively parallel in nature, thereby reducing the iterations required for discovery.

The company says the result is rapid development of new, customizable material compositions that are being applied to a variety of technologies including LED and display phosphors, scintillators, IC materials and fuel cell development.

Nov. 20, 2006 — FUJIFILM Dimatix Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif., announced it has shipped more than 5,000 Dimatix Materials Cartridges to customers in the first year of production of its Dimatix Materials Printer (DMP) systems.

The cartridges are a key component of the DMP, which is used by developers of printable functional fluids and engineering groups to investigate unique new approaches to RFID, printable electronics, photovoltaics, biotechnology applications and other technologies.

The DMP is a bench-top precision digital materials deposition system for high-precision jetting of all kinds of functional fluids on any type of surface, including plastic, glass, metal sheets, silicon, membranes, gels, thin films and paper.

It uses a monolithic silicon-based MEMS structure to create a low-cost, 16-jet cartridge for precise, high-speed materials jetting and is intended to be a turnkey system for quickly developing and testing processes and prototypes, as well as conducting low-volume manufacturing of a broad range of products — from flexible circuits, RFID tags and displays to DNA arrays, optical lenses and wearable electronics.