02/15/2001  FEB. 15 San Jose, California--Silicon Valley Group, Inc. (SVG) has resolved the last of its legal disputes with six vendors of semiconductor processing and manufacturing equipment.

02/14/2001  FEB. 14 Kulim, Malaysia--Silterra Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., a full-service semiconductor manufacturing provider, today announced that it has successfully produced fully functional, high-yielding product wafers in its CMOS22, 0.22-micron process technology. The wafers were delivered to one of Silterra's strategic customers last month.

02/14/2001  FEB. 14 Singapore--Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing today detailed its plans for Singapore's first 300mm fab. Pilot production on Fab 7, Chartered's largest wafer fab project, is now scheduled to begin in 2002 at an estimated cost of $3.5 billion.

02/13/2001  FEB. 13 Santa Clara, California--GHz Technology Inc., a supplier of power transistors for radio frequency (RF) and microwave applications, today announced it has modernized its wafer fab and added state-of-the-art assembly and test capabilities to its Santa Clara facility.

02/13/2001  February 12, 2001--Chelmsford, Massachusetts--Brooks Automation, Inc. today announced that it has shipped its 2,000th 300mm Load Port FIXLOAD to the Sez Group. The tool uses front opening unified pod (FOUP) technology, which is standard for 300mm wafer production.

02/12/2001  FEB. 12 San Jose, California--Numerical Technologies today announced that it has entered into a joint development program with UMC, one of the world's largest semiconductor foundries, to qualify and deploy Numerical's Virtual Stepper system in a high-volume production environment.

02/12/2001  FEB. 12 Jupiter, Florida--Photronics, Inc., a leading photomask supplier, announced today that it has signed a multi-system purchase agreement with Toshiba Machine Co., Ltd. for its EBM-3500 vector scanning electron beam photomask lithography system.

02/12/2001  FEB. 12 Migdal Haemek, Israel--Tower Semiconductor Ltd. announced today the signing of a definitive agreement with The Challenge Fund - Etgar II, a venture capital partnership registered in Delaware, under which The Challenge Fund will invest $5 million in Tower common shares under terms similar to Tower's recent investment agreement with Israel Corp.

02/12/2001  FEB. 12 Singapore--ST Assembly Test Services (STATS) today announced that it has expanded its gallium arsenide (GaAs) capability to support package assembly for ICs on pre-sawn wafers down to a market-leading 4 mils thick.

02/09/2001  FEB. 9 Los Alamos, New Mexico--A new photoresist removal technology that eliminates the use of hazardous chemicals and the production of wastewater in the fabrication of ICs has been created by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico.

02/08/2001  Foster City, California--SCANIS Inc., an image analysis software company, has been awarded a patent in the U.K. for its semiconductor yield management products. SCANIS has also secured a patent in the U.S. covering its Automatic Semiconductor Wafer Sorter/Prober with Extended Optical Inspection. Other foreign semiconductor patents are pending.

02/06/2001  TAIWAN -- The investment arm of the Singapore Economic Development Board - EDB Investments Pte. Ltd. (EBDI) - has been added as a 15 percent shareholder to the United Microelectronics Corp. advanced 300mm fab project in Singapore's Pasir Ris Wafer Fab Park.

02/06/2001  Research Triangle Park, North Carolina--Unitive Inc., a provider of outsourced advanced semiconductor packaging technologies, has closed a $30 million round of equity financing led by Onex Corp. and now plans to build and acquire state-of-the-art wafer level bumping and flip chip fabrication facilities throughout the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

02/01/2001  San Diego, California--JMAR Technologies Inc., a supplier of microtechnology products, announced today that its fabless semiconductor division has signed a 3-year supply and manufacturing agreement with 1st Silicon Sdn. Bhd., a recently established 200mm foundry located in Sarawak, Malaysia.

02/01/2001  By my definition, contaminants are any impurities or undesired materials that degrade product performance or reliability or adversely effect product manufacturability.

02/01/2001  PORTO REGION, PORTUGAL — If you plan it, will they come? ICEP-Portugal, the Portuguese government investment agency, hopes the answer is yes.

01/31/2001  Willow Grove, Pennsylvania--Kulicke & Soffa Industries Inc. and its Flip Chip Technologies, LLC (FCT) joint venture today announced that National Semiconductor Corp., Santa Clara, CA, has signed a license for FCT's wafer bumping technology.

01/30/2001  Newport Beach, California--Conexant Systems, Inc. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, of Hsinchu, Taiwan, today announced that they have entered into a long-term semiconductor cross-licensing wafer supply and technology agreement.

01/30/2001  Singapore--EDB Investments Pte Ltd. (EDBI), the Singapore Economic Development Board's investment arm, today announced that it has confirmed a 15% equity stake in United Microelectronics Corp.'s (UMC) independent foundry company in Singapore. EDBI joins Infineon Technologies AG as a shareholder in the advanced US$3.6 billion 300mm facility, in which UMC holds a majority stake. This venture is the largest single manufacturing investment into Singapore.

01/29/2001  Villach, Austria--The SEZ Group today announced the opening of its newest regional office in Asia, SEZ Taiwan. The office will support SEZ's current installed base of tools, and is preparing to support the expected increase in demand from Taiwanese foundries as they move toward 300mm production.