10/03/2011 

Rudolph Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:RTEC) shipped its Wafer Scanner 3880 3D Inspection System, multiple NSX Macro Defect Inspection Systems and its Discover Yield Management Software Suite to a leading semiconductor manufacturer for use in developing through silicon via (TSV) structures.

09/30/2011 

Semiconductor equipment spending in 2011 looks to be slightly weaker than anticipated, and is looking a lot softer in 2012 across the board, according to Gartner's new semiconductor capex forecasts.

09/30/2011 

Engineers at the NIST Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology (CNST) NanoFab have developed a plasma etch/argon process that improves etch rate, mask selectivity, and the sidewall profile of silicon structures.

09/30/2011 

Applied Energy Systems Inc. is breaking ground on its Semiconductor Equipment Manufacturing and Technology (SEMAT) Center next week. The SEMAT Center will manufacture leading edge gas source and distribution systems.

09/30/2011 

Amkor will acquire Toshiba Electronics Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Toshiba

09/27/2011 

New York State has entered into agreements for $4.4 billion in investments over the next 5 years from Intel, IBM, GlobalFoundries, TSMC, and Samsung to create a 450mm consortium and manufacturing center there.

09/27/2011 

SEMICON Europa is coming up fast (Oct. 11-13), and SST (and some friends) will be reporting on-scene. Here's a summary of the presentations we're looking forward to, from the Fab Managers' Forum to conferences on test, packaging, MEMS, and hot topics including 3D ICs and 450mm.

09/27/2011 

In a podcast interview with ElectroIQ.com, Ziptronix president & CEO, Daniel Donabedian, and company CTO, Paul Enquist, discussed both the Ziptronix wafer bonding technology and their partnership with Sony.

09/26/2011 

Crossing Automation Inc. launched its 450mm sorter, the Spartan 450. A leading semiconductor manufacturer has ordered the sorter, Crossing Automation reports, planning the install in Q1 2012.

09/23/2011 

Macroeconomic factors will tug down global electronics demand in 2011, said IHS, which lowered its semiconductor revenue growth forecast for 2011. While the slowdown comes at a bad time -- pre-holiday sales season -- lessons learned in 2008 could shorten the down period significantly.

09/21/2011 

Synopsys enhanced its TetraMAX ATPG and Yield Explorer to improve volume diagnostics flow and speed up yield ramp for IC manufacturing. Flow in TetraMAX ATPG and Yield Explorer is automated with a new direct connection between the two products.

09/21/2011 

InstruTech released its Cold cathode Ionization vacuum gauge CCM501, which the company is calling its Hornet module. The CCM501 is a rugged Cold Cathode gauge based on double inverted magnetron technology. It measures pressures from 1 x 10^-8 to 1 x 10^-2 Torr.

09/21/2011 

Reporting from this week's SPIE BACUS Photomask Technology conference, Franklin Kalk from Toppan Photomasks picks through the "10 best" papers that were to have been presented at Photomask Japan earlier this year.

09/20/2011 

Rice University researchers devised a method to grow high-quality bilayer graphene on a functional substrate, circumventing the transfer step from catalyst to insulator substrate.

09/19/2011 

North America-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers posted $1.18 billion in orders in August 2011, which led to a book-to-bill ratio of 0.80, according to SEMI's August Book-to-Bill Report.

09/16/2011 

Techcet's Michael A. Fury shares some bullet-point analyses from IC Insights' Fall Forecast Seminar in Sunnyvale, CA, where the firm offered its latest take on semiconductor sales, capex, and application growth for 2011 and 2012.

09/15/2011 

Techcet's Michael A. Fury reports from a NCAAVS CMP user group meeting in San Jose, CA, with the overall theme of CMP for the hard-disk drive industry: market outlooks for HDDs, different requirements and challenges vs. IC manufacturing, and new technologies and applications for CMP in patterned media.

09/15/2011 

Jim Walker, VP, Research of Semiconductor Manufacturing and Emerging Technologies, at Gartner, speaks with Solid State Technology about revising Gartner

09/15/2011 

Update: Video interviews with the award winners. Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) bestowed its Aristotle and Technical Excellence awards on teams researching TCAD IC simulation and test/validation methods on the IC fab line.

09/13/2011 

Dual-beam laser spike annealing (LSA) technology allows access to new temperature-time regimes and enables new CMOS logic applications for the 28nm node and beyond. J. Hebb et al, Ultratech, explain dual-beam LSA's use in long dwell time, and low-temperature applications.