12/20/2001  Dec. 20, 2001 - Livingston, Scotland - NEC Corp. will suspend operations of its semiconductor manufacturing facility, NEC Semiconductors (UK) Ltd. (NECSUK), located in Livingston, Scotland, beginning in April 2002.

12/19/2001  Dec. 19, 2001 - Colorado Springs, CO - United Test and Assembly Center Limited (UTAC), and Ramtron International Corp. subsidiary Enhanced Memory Systems Inc. have jointly developed a flip-chip chip-scale package (FC CSP).

12/18/2001  Dec. 18, 2001 - Sunnyvale, CA - The Electronic Materials business of Honeywell will begin construction of a packaging components manufacturing facility in Thailand to supply the region with anext generation thermal and electrical interconnect solutions.

12/17/2001  Dec 17, 2001 - Seoul, Korea - A South Korean consortium led by chip design firm Aralion Inc. said on Monday it expected to sign a deal to buy Hynix Semiconductor's non-memory chip lines next March.

12/14/2001  Dec. 14, 2001 - Milpitas, CA - Elantec Semiconductor Inc. has signed an agreement that establishes Philips Semiconductors' Albuquerque, NM, site as the primary bipolar foundry for Elantec's future bipolar wafer process requirements.

12/14/2001  Dec. 14, 2001 - Singapore - Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing has appointed Shi-Chung Sun as senior VP of technology development. With the creation of this new position, Chartered has expanded its office of the president, previously a four-person executive management team.

12/14/2001  Dec.14, 2001 - Taipei, Taiwan - A Taiwan Ministry of Economic Affairs task force has concluded that a decision to lift the ban on semiconductor manufacturing investments in China needs further study.

12/14/2001  December 14, 2001 -- MILPITAS, CA -- Elantec Semiconductor, Inc. has entered into a strategic wafer foundry agreement with Philips Semiconductors. The agreement establishes Philips Semiconductors' Albuquerque, New Mexico site as Elantec's primary bipolar foundry for its future bipolar wafer process requirements.

12/13/2001  Dec. 13, 2001 - New York, NY - Morgan Stanley has lowered the investment rating of the semiconductor industry to 'hold' from 'overweight,' citing weak global demand for memory chips in 1Q02.

12/07/2001  NuTool engineers have shown that overburden associated with conventional electrochemical deposition (ECD) can be reduced from 500 to 2,000nm to 100 to 500nm using the company's electrochemical mechanical deposition (ECMD).

12/06/2001  December 6, 2001 -- PORTLAND, OR -- More than two dozen employees at the Wacker Siltronic plant are suing the wafer maker for allegedly failing to pay the workers for time spent changing in and out of cleanroom garments.

12/06/2001  Dec. 6, 2001 - Taipei, Taiwan - In order to accelerate the development as a wafer foundry service provider, Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp. will drop the manufacturing of its DRAM chips in 2002, executives of the firm said.

12/05/2001  Dec. 5, 2001 - San Jose, CA - Electroglas, a supplier of test and inspection equipment, has joined the Semiconductor Equipment Consortium for Advanced Packaging (SECAP).

12/05/2001  Dec. 5, 2001 - Tokyo, Japan - On the opening day of SEMICON Japan 2001, ASML announced the creation of a new Asian training center based in Kawasaki, Japan.

12/04/2001  December 4, 2001 -- VILLACH, Austria -- International SEMATECH (ISMT) will take delivery of the 1300 SEZ Spin-Process tool for its 300 mm silicon wafer research and development, according to the SEZ Group. Based on previous success using SEZ tools for other frontside and backside applications, ISMT plans to use this tool to develop process modules for double-sided pre-oxidation and pre-gate cleanings.

12/04/2001  Dec. 4, 2001 - Santa Clara, CA - Applied Materials has acquired all of the outstanding equity of Global Knowledge Services (GKS) Inc., a privately-held company based in Austin, TX, that provides advanced data mining services to improve semiconductor manufacturing yield and efficiency.

12/04/2001 
For the MEMS industry, friction is a key problem. It's one of the main impediments to successfully making some micromachined gears and moving parts. But on Monday, two teens from New York state turned that sticky problem into a successful science fair project, winning a $100,000 scholarship in the Siemens Westinghouse Science and Technology Competition.

12/03/2001 

12/01/2001  Solutions for wafer edge processing

12/01/2001  Airborne molecular contaminants (AMCs) are non-particulate contaminants that easily penetrate conventional HEPA and ULPA filters. Like particles, AMCs consist of molecules, or clusters of molecules.