12/01/2001  AUSTIN, TX—The story from October's Semicon Southwest trade show and conference was no different from most shows that took place over the past two months.

12/01/2001  Selecting an optical particle counter (OPC) can appear deceptively simple. Typically, the specification focuses on sensitivity, flow rate, size range and coincidence loss. Secondary requirements are number of channels, the sample/hold periods and alarm limits.

12/01/2001  Monitoring an ultra-pure water (UPW) system requires more than just watching meters, tabulating numbers and looking at charts.

11/28/2001  November 28, 2001 -- SAN JOSE, CA -- KLA-Tencor Corp. recently announced that Texas Instruments (TI) has placed a follow-on order for KLA-Tencor's 2350 ultraviolet (UV) inspection system. This order is a result of the critical role the 2350 system is playing in the rapid ramp of TI's first 300 mm production line, located in Dallas, Texas.

11/28/2001  Nov. 28, 2001 - Austin, TX, and Singapore - Cirrus Logic Inc., a supplier of high-performance analog and DSP chip solutions for consumer entertainment electronics, and Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing have signed a multi-year manufacturing agreement.

11/26/2001  Nov. 26, 2001 - Santa Clara, CA - Applied Materials has acquired the assets of Schlumberger's electron-beam wafer inspection business for an undisclosed cash amount.

11/21/2001  November 21, 2001 - Fremont, CA - Exar Corp. has reported that its bipolar wafer supplier has decided to discontinue its domestic wafer foundry. According to the company, the wafer foundry supports Exar's bipolar, custom, and standard products.

11/19/2001  What would happen if equipment suppliers got together and decided that they would all charge cancellation fees when customers cancel orders - and hold fast to collection?

11/19/2001  Nov. 19, 2001 - San Diego, CA - JMAR Technologies, a provider of precision micro- and nanotechnology products, announced that its JMAR/JSAL NanoLithography Inc. (JSAL) division, Burlington, VT, has received a $1.2 million contract from a major New England-based aerospace firm to provide a continuing range of X-ray lithography (XRL) support services funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

11/16/2001  Nov. 16, 2001 - Shanghai, China - Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) has successfully secured more than $1 billion of capital through the sale of Series A Preferred Shares earlier this fall.

11/16/2001  November 16, 2001 - Midland, MI - International SEMATECH will supply process wafers to the SiLKnet Alliance, an industrywide collaboration of materials and equipment suppliers working toward integrated low-k process development.

11/15/2001  Nov. 15, 2001 -- Technology stocks fell this morning with news late yesterday of an earnings plunge from industry giant Applied Materials, Santa Clara, CA. The NASDAQ dropped 9.08 points at the opening, the Dow Jones was down 3.95 points.

11/14/2001  November 14, 2001 -- Oakland, CA -- Rumsey Engineers, Inc., a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) design engineering firm has opened its first satellite office in Phoenix, Arizona.

11/14/2001  November 14, 2001 - San Jose, CA - KLA-Tencor Corp. announced that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has successfully completed its beta evaluation of KLA-Tencor's TeraStar SLF27 reticle inspection system on advanced sub-wavelength reticles used in manufacturing devices with design rules as small as 130 nm.

11/12/2001  Who would have thought it only a few months ago? China seems to be growing an entrepreneurial semiconductor foundry industry - thanks to the success of an aggressive drive to recruit industry talent from Taiwan.

11/09/2001  November 9, 2001 - Taipei, Taiwan - Winbond Electronics Corp. said it would gradually move out of IC production and shift to IC design.

11/09/2001  It's only one customer's opinion, but Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) says so far Hitachi Kokusai and Sony are doing the best job on 300mm automation, meeting 90% of TSMC specifications.

11/08/2001  Traditional yield enhancement techniques focus on analyzing the causes of killer defects - those due to sources of contamination on the wafer and in the factory. However, feature-limited yield is becoming a dominant driver of overall yield as the industry goes further and further into the deep sub-micron (DSM) region.

11/08/2001  Scientists at NASA's Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, OH, and their colleagues believe they have found ways to make more reliable wide-band-gap semiconductor devices with two recent breakthroughs.

11/08/2001  November 8, 2001 - Burlingame, CA - Metron Technology N.V. has been chosen as the exclusive distributor for microelectronics products from Carl Zeiss Microelectronic Systems GmbH, a subsidiary of Carl Zeiss Semiconductor Manufacturing Technologies AG, in Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore.