Tag Archives: Small Times Magazine

Feb. 28, 2006 – Intematix Corp. of Fremont, Calif., demonstrated what it called a key addition to its customer list by announcing that it will provide its line of phosphors to Taiwan’s Kingbright Electronic Co. Ltd.

The news follows Kingbright’s recent announcement of a licensing agreement that allows Kingbright to manufacture and sell packaged LEDs using Cree’s patented white LED technology.

Intematix vice president of engineering Yi Qun Li said in a prepared statement that the combination of Kingbright’s capabilities, its licensed usage of CREE’s white LED technology, and Intematix’s phosphor technologies can serve the marketplace with high performance and flexible color designs.

Included in the license is Intematix’ White Lightning NY450/NY460 product line which has recently been expanded to include warm white spectral variants.

Feb. 28, 2006 – Bell Helicopter selected Honeywell to provide five key avionic products for the new Bell 429 helicopter, Honeywell announced this week. The centerpiece of the avionics is the new KSG-7200 Air Data Attitude Heading Reference System (ADAHRS).

The KSG-7200 is a derivative product from Honeywell’s air transport and business jet markets. The system features Honeywell’s MEMS sensors in place of spinning mass gyros and accelerometers. The sensors’ accuracy eliminates reliance on updates from a global positioning system.

“The selection by Bell Helicopter represents the first helicopter contract award of the solid state MEMS ADAHRS,” said Doug Kult, sales director for light/utility helicopters at Honeywell. “Federal Aviation Administration certification is expected this year.”

Feb. 28, 2006 – Akustica, a builder of electronic products using MEMS technology, announced the availability of single-chip microphones.

The Akustica microphone chips are small, thin, light devices designed to replace the electret condenser microphone, a fifty-year-old technology that has been used in billions of portable electronic devices.

As a silicon microphone, Akustica says its microphone chips are not prone to the same degree of noise from any of these devices. The company says they also offer benefits to manufacturers. Because of their small size and surface-mountable design, they well suited to space-constrained consumer electronics devices that are manufactured in high volumes.

In addition, Akustica said that since it uses standard CMOS processes its microphone chips can be manufactured in quantity by existing CMOS foundries rather than by dedicated MEMS foundries.

Feb. 28, 2006 – Nanophase Technologies, a maker of nanomaterials and advanced nanomaterial products, announced an extension to its line of alumina-based polishing products for electronics, displays, and optical polishing applications.

The new alumina nanoparticles developed specifically for these applications are essentially spherical, leading to what the company claims are excellent surface finish and significantly reduced defect rates.

In addition, the new NanoTek alumina is approximately 80 nanometers, twice as large as the company’s current alumina product, to increase removal rates in polishing while lowering cost.

PCAST gets 14 new members


February 28, 2006

Feb. 28, 2006 – President Bush has appointed 14 new members to his Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), including several supporters of micro and nanotechnology. The appointments bring the total PCAST membership to 38.

These appointments follow the president’s Sept. 29, 2005 amendment to PCAST’s executive order to increase its membership and to designate PCAST to serve as his information technology advisory panel.

New members are: F. Duane Ackerman, chairman, president and chief executive of Bellsouth Corp.; Paul Anderson, chairman and CEO of Duke Energy; Robert Brown, president of Boston University; Nance Dicciani, president and CEO of Honeywell Specialty Materials; Richard Herman, chancellor of the University of Illinois; Fred Kavli, founder and chairman of the Kavli Foundation; Daniel Reed, director of Renaissance Computing Institute; Hector de Jesus Ruiz, chairman and president of Advanced Micro Devices; Stratton Sclavos, chairman and CEO of VeriSign; John Brooks Slaughter, president and CEO of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering; Joseph Tucci, president and CEO of EMC Corp.; Robert Witt, president of the University of Alabama, and Tadataka Yamada, chairman for research and development at GlaxoSmithKline.

Many of the advisers champion micro and nanotechnology. For instance, Kavli has funded several nanoscience centers at universities and launched awards for nanotech research. Jischke has been an advocate for the Birck Nanotechnology Center at Purdue. Honeywell and AMD are involved in micro and nanotech R&D.

Feb. 27, 2006 – Amkor Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: AMKR) announced that it is establishing wafer bumping operations in Singapore using the same processes currently employed by Amkor’s Unitive subsidiary in Taiwan.

Amkor’s Singapore bump facility is expected to commence operations in the second half of 2006 and will provide, in conjunction with Amkor’s existing test operations in Singapore, wafer bump and wafer probe services to support emerging applications on 300mm wafers at the 90nm and 65nm process nodes.

Feb. 24, 2006 — KLA-Tencor Corp. (NASDAQ: KLAC) and ADE Corp. (NASDAQ: ADEX) jointly announced that they have signed a definitive agreement for KLA-Tencor to acquire ADE in a stock-for-stock transaction valued at approximately $488 million based on the closing price of KLA-Tencor on February 22.

The combination would allow ADE to use the industry presence of KLA-Tencor to accelerate development of new products within the semiconductor device area, according to a prepared statement by Chris Koliopoulos, ADE’s CEO and president. He added that it would also provide ADE with access to a worldwide semiconductor customer base.

KLA-Tencor CEO Rick Wallace said the deal is in line with the company’s strategy to expand into adjacent markets with solid growth prospects.

Feb. 24, 2006 Tegal Corp. (Nasdaq: TGAL), a designer and manufacturer of plasma etch and deposition systems used in the production of integrated circuits and nanotechnology devices, announced the appointment of Scott Brown as vice president of sales for North America.

Prior to joining Tegal, Brown was senior vice president of North American sales and operations for Trikon Technologies Inc., which was recently merged with Aviza Technologies Inc.

From 1984 through 2000, Mr. Brown held senior sales management roles with Trikon/Electrotech, Eaton Semiconductor, Sputtered Films Inc. and Materials Research Corporation. He also has experience in process engineering roles at TRW, McDonnell Douglas Commodore Semiconductor and Rockwell.

Feb. 23, 2006 — Cepheid, a Sunnyvale, Calif., molecular diagnostics company, announced the European launch of its GeneXpert System for in vitro diagnostic use along with the Xpert BCR-ABL Monitor assay, the initial clinical diagnostic test for use on the GeneXpert System.

Both the GeneXpert System and the Xpert BCR-ABL Monitor assay were released as “European Conformity” CE IVD Mark products under the European Directive on In Vitro Diagnostic Medical Devices.

The Xpert BCR-ABL Monitor can be used as an aid in the monitoring of BCR-ABL, an abnormal genetic marker found in patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia.

Feb. 22, 2006 – Applied Materials Inc. announced that it has shipped its 500th 300mm chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) system. The 300mm Applied Reflexion LK CMP and the Applied Reflexion LK Ecmp systems are used by memory and logic chipmakers for advanced production, as well as for next-generation device development.

Overall, according to a prepared statement by Farhad Moghadam, senior vice president and general manager of the company’s thin films group, Applied has shipped more than 2,000 CMP systems, including 200mm versions.