04/05/2011 

MagnaChip Semiconductor now offers cost-competitive and state-of-the-art copper wire bonding technology, which can create a packaging cost savings of about 20% to 30%. MagnaChip worked with the major packaging companies to develop a bonding process that protects wafers under bond pads.

04/04/2011 

SiliconBlue Technologies unveiled its mobileFPGA platform device roadmap using TSMC's 40nm low power standard CMOS process. The two distinct families target the two areas where smartphones and other handhelds differentiate.

04/04/2011 

Thin Film Electronics ASA (Thinfilm) and PARC, a Xerox company, entered the next phase of their co-innovation engagement for printed memory devices. This next phase extends the engagement to prototyping the product for manufacturing readiness.

04/01/2011 

Daniel Duffy, research scientist in Henkel's Advanced Technology Group, notes pros and cons of epoxy and silicone encapsulants for high-brightness LED (HB-LED) manufacturing, and what HB-LED manufacturers need from die attach materials. He also considers quantum dots.

04/01/2011  Phil Garrou, Contributing Editor

03/31/2011 

Sigurd Microelectronics Corporation (Sigurd) will be the first adopter of Multitest's MT2168 pick-and-place test handler in volume production in Taiwan. The SATS provider will use it to test various QFN packages.

03/31/2011 

Zvi Or-Bach, MonolithIC 3D, describes the TSV-beating monolithic IC fab process, and argues for scaling "up" rather than down. Or-Bach compares the costs of further semiconductor scaling to advanced packaging.

03/29/2011 

Sales of semiconductor materials rose 25% in 2010 to a new record $43.55B thanks to surging device shipments, according to final tallies from SEMI.

03/29/2011 

NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ: NXPI) says that it has developed the smallest logic leadless plastic packages measuring 0.9 x 1.0 x 0.35mm with 0.3mm pitch. The packages also demonstrate 4x better mechanical adhesion to the PCB than other packages in the same form factor.

03/25/2011 

About a fortnight since the 8.9 earthquake struck Japan near Sendai, Fujitsu has resumed some operations at its back-end packaging and semiconductor testing sites.

03/23/2011 

 Supertex (NASDAQ: SUPX) will package its HV2601 and HV2701 16-channel, low-charge injection, 200V analog switch ICs in 5.29 x 5.30mm, 42-ball bumped die packages. This packaging represents a 50% space savings over the previous 48-ball fpBGA package.

03/22/2011 

Torrey Hills Technologies (THT) signed an agreement with Si2 Microsystems Pvt Ltd., India-based microelectronics company and THT furnace customer, for the use of its furnace to test-fire samples sent from THT's potential semiconductor, packaging, and solar cell clients.

03/21/2011 

Victor Moroz discusses the strong but doable effects of stress on TSVs. TSV stress ranges are comparable to the size of the TSV, and analog behaves differently than digital. Synopsys recently presented results (part of a collaboration with imec) at a SEMATECH event.

03/21/2011 

CEA-Leti and IPDiA have formed a common lab to capitalize on their complementary expertise in miniaturization and 3D integration on silicon. The common lab will develop very high-end passive components that will resist harsh environments, functional sub-mounts for LEDs, and assembly technologies.

03/18/2011 

IEEE reached the 400,000 member mark for the first time in its history. By the end of 2010, total IEEE membership had surpassed 400,000, making it the seventh consecutive year the association had experienced membership growth.

03/17/2011 

The System LSI Division of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has licensed the OptiML Zoom image enhancement solution from Tessera Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:TSRA).

03/16/2011 

Amid questions about the impact of the Japan earthquake on electronics and semiconductor production, there's one angle that could directly affect the semiconductor packaging sector: BT resin shortages.

03/15/2011 

KLA-Tencor Corporation (Nasdaq: KLAC) introduced the ICOS CI-T620, a high-performance component inspector system for tape and reel. The CI-T620 system has dual tapers working sequentially with minimal operator intervention to increase units per hour.

03/14/2011 

Accretech’s next generation prober, the UF3000EX, offers high-speed wafer handling, a low-noise XY stage, and high accuracy with its OTS (Optical Target Scope) positioning technology. 

03/14/2011 

Molex Incorporated, interconnect supplier, has joined with other researchers to advance the goals of the Danish SAFE (Smart Antenna Front End) project. Scheduled to span four years, the $8.7 million project is being conducted by a consortium comprising Aalborg University, Intel Mobile Communications, WiSpry and Molex.