News

Monday 10th March 2003

Established in 1963, TEL played an active role in the early days of the IT revolution. Since the first year of operation, TEL has continued to promote technological innovation and customer success in the semiconductor industry, as well as other high-tech business arenas. TEL offers the most reliable products in the industry by continually strengthening our research and development facilities and core employee base. Our R&D efforts focus on two key objectives: the development of next-generation process technologies, and the constant improvement of equipment reliability and productivity. Our development, manufacturing, marketing, sales, R&D and field engineering groups work collaboratively to provide standard-setting products and service. To persist as the leader in technological innovation, we fine-tune products to fulfill our customers specific needs through evaluation tests and demonstrations. New products and processes are designed in close cooperation with our customers, placing TEL technology on the leading edge and often setting the standards for industry procedures. Our leading product lines include: Oxidation/diffusion; LP-CVD systems Coaters/developers Metrology solutions Cleaning systems Metal PVD systems Metal CVD systems Plasma etch systems Wafer probers The equipment made by TEL enables our customers to transform their concepts into marketable products. In essence, we focus our energy and resources on harnessing technologies that change the world.

Monday 10th March 2003

Hynix Semiconductor introduced what it says is commercially applicable FeRAM (ferroelectric RAM) - a non-volatile, low power, high-density and high-speed memory. Hynix has used the ferroelectric material BLT (bismuth lanthanum titanate).

Monday 10th March 2003

Oxford Instruments Superconductivity is joining the UK Cryogenic Instrumentation for Quantum Electronics Collaboration. The company will supply cryogenic consultancy and an ultra low temperature (ULT) system to enable the extremely low temperature environments essential for research into quantum electronics, quantum computing and quantum nanotechnology.

Monday 10th March 2003

Amkor Technology and Sharp have agreed to unify the design for 3D system in package assembly for the stacking of very thin packages. Target markets are ASICs, DSPs and memories for cell phones, PDAs, digital still cameras.

Monday 10th March 2003

A new in-situ etch and regrowth process for uncooled InP buried-heterostructure lasers with claimed 50% lower rates of burn-in degradation is to be introduced by Bookham Technology at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition (OFC) this month (March 2003). The burn-in improvement promises increasing long-term reliability of devices, which also exhibit 20% lower threshold currents. The new process is also compatible with newer aluminium gallium indium arsenide (AlGaInAs) materials.

Monday 10th March 2003

A new in situ etch and regrowth process for uncooled InP buried heterostructure lasers with claimed 50 percent lower rates of burn in degradation is to be introduced by Bookham Technology at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition (OFC) this month (March 2003). The burn-in improvement promises increasing long-term reliability of devices, which also exhibit 20 percent lower threshold currents. The new process is also compatible with newer aluminium gallium indium arsenide (AlGaInAs) materials.

Monday 10th March 2003

French president Jacques Chirac inaugurated the Crolles2 Alliance of Philips, Motorola and STMicroelectronics. The joint R&D centre will pioneer CMOS technology from 90nm processes to 32nm over the next five years and also includes a 300mm wafer semiconductor manufacturing pilot line, which is now beginning operation. Taiwan foundry TSMC also has participation in the work in terms of process development and alignment.

Monday 10th March 2003

French president Jacques Chirac inaugurated the Crolles2 Alliance of Philips, Motorola and STMicroelectronics. The joint R&D centre will pioneer CMOS technology from 90nm processes to 32nm over the next five years and also includes a 300mm wafer semiconductor manufacturing pilot line, which is now beginning operation. Taiwan foundry TSMC also has participation in the work in terms of process development and alignment.

Monday 10th March 2003

A new in-situ etch and regrowth process for uncooled InP buried-heterostructure lasers with claimed 50 per cent lower rates of burn-in degradation is to be introduced by Bookham Technology at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition (OFC) this month (March 2003). The burn-in improvement promises increasing long-term reliability of devices, which also exhibit 20 percent lower threshold currents. The new process is also compatible with newer aluminium gallium indium arsenide (AlGaInAs) materials.

Monday 10th March 2003

French president Jacques Chirac inaugurated the Crolles2 Alliance of Philips, Motorola and STMicroelectronics. The joint R and D centre will pioneer CMOS technology from 90nm processes to 32nm over the next five years and also includes a 300mm wafer semiconductor manufacturing pilot line, which is now beginning operation. Taiwan foundry TSMC also has participation in the work in terms of process development and alignment.

Monday 10th March 2003

Agere Systems was claiming it has 21 breakthrough transistor products aimed at the wireless power amplifier market for 2-3G base station equipment. The transistor technology uses two key innovations aimed at improving performance and reliability the first resolves the issue of how to eliminate defects in chips when making ultra-thin silicon wafers and the other improves performance when amplifying wireless signals.

Monday 10th March 2003

Philips Electronics has accelerated investment in and renamed its instrumentation divisions SurfaceWave technology branch. SurfaceWave will now be known as Philips Advanced Metrology Systems (Philips AMS). The business will specialise in the manufacture and marketing of semiconductor interconnect metal film thickness measurement tools for online monitoring of advanced semiconductor processes such as copper metallisation. Such processes include barrier/seed, electrochemical deposition (ECD) plating and chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) on blanket and patterned wafers.

Monday 10th March 2003

Design tool company Synopsys completed its acquisition of Numerical Technologies, a provider of subwavelength lithography enabling technology. Synopsys acquired 90.71 percent of the outstanding shares of Numerical common stock for a purchase price of 7.00 dollars per share in cash, without interest, through a tender offer by its wholly owned subsidiary, Neon Acquisition. As the final step of the acquisition, Synopsys caused Neon Acquisition to merge with and into Numerical on March 1, 2003. Numerical shares not purchased in the tender offer will be converted into the right to receive the same 7.00 dollars per share in cash, without interest. As a result, Numerical is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Synopsys.

Monday 10th March 2003

Infineon Technologies is considering a move of its corporate headquarters out of Germany. While the German weekly magazine Stern says firm plans to move have already been made, Reuters reports a spokeswoman saying No decision has yet been taken. High taxes and legal restrictions in Germany are said to be among the reasons for the development. The company could move to Switzerland, Singapore or the USA.

Monday 10th March 2003

The World Semiconductor Trade Statistics organisation reported a 22 percent year on year increase in its January 2003 world sales figures. The January total was 12.2bn dollars consisting of 2.47bn dollars for Europe (+16.0 percent), 2.71bn dollars for Japan (+34.0 percent), 4.51bn dollars for Asia-Pacific (+32.6 percent) and 2.54bn dollars for the Americas (+2.8 percent).

Monday 10th March 2003

A new in situ etch and regrowth process for uncooled InP buried heterostructure lasers with claimed 50 percent lower rates of burn in degradation is to be introduced by Bookham Technology at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition (OFC) this month (March 2003). The burn-in improvement promises increasing long-term reliability of devices, which also exhibit 20 percent lower threshold currents. The new process is also compatible with newer aluminium gallium indium arsenide (AlGaInAs) materials.

Monday 10th March 2003

Theta 300 provides the perfect solution for characterizing thin films on tomorrows semiconductor devices. Its unique, non-destructive, technology provides dose, distribution, layer thickness, purity, uniformity and composition measurements from any point on the wafer. Not only will it measure elemental compositions but it will also provide chemical state information. It detects the presence, nature and thickness of buried interface layers. Theta 300 measures contaminants in the layer, at the surface and at the interfaces. Theta 300 is ideally suited to the metrology of gate dielectrics, including oxynitrides and newer materials such as hafnium oxide. Theta 300 accommodates wafers up to 300mm and thicker specimens, such as packaged devices. It provides metrology, QC and R&D facilities with a powerful new tool to accelerate the development of tomorrow’s semiconductor devices. Theta 300 can also be configured with an additional, side-mounted transfer chamber for FOUP, cassette, or clean-room applications. Click here for the application form for a copy of the Theta 300 interactive presentation CD.

Monday 10th March 2003

US semiconductor equipment developer Silicon Genesis Corporation (SiGen) has successfully developed a new strained silicon method to create high carrier mobility layers. The process is applicable to the fabrication of strained-silicon bulk wafers and strained-silicon silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers.

Monday 10th March 2003

US semiconductor equipment developer Silicon Genesis Corporation (SiGen) has successfully developed a new strained silicon method to create high carrier mobility layers. The process is applicable to the fabrication of strained-silicon bulk wafers and strained-silicon silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers.

Friday 7th March 2003

Silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer manufacturer Soitec has acquired assets of the French epitaxial wafer supplier Picogiga. Soitec will support existing Picogiga customers and core business - growing epitaxial layers on compound-semiconductor substrates. The business mainly uses gallium arsenide (GaAs) substrates, with layers deposited via molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Soitec plans to apply its Smart Cut technology to compound materials. Smart Cut uses wafer bonding with a hydrogen implant to cut off thin layers on a substrate.

Thursday 6th March 2003

Shipley Company, L.L.C., is a world leader in electronic materials and process technology development. As part of the $1 billion Rohm and Haas Company Electronic Materials Business Group (NYSE: ROH), Shipley delivers exceptionally innovative technologies across a broad range of applications. These platforms include advanced circuit board technology, semiconductor manufacturing and advanced packaging. Our products are integral elements in cell phones, smart cards, computers, flat panel displays, automotive electronics and equipment that power the internet, and much more. Additional information is available at www.shipley.com. Click here to access product guide downloads

Tuesday 4th March 2003

Optical switch array module maker OMM will cease operations as of Friday March 7, 2003. The company plans to release all of its 85 employees and assign the assets to the benefit of creditors.

Tuesday 4th March 2003

An Israeli organic semiconductor technology company, Nanolayers, has become the first firm to receive funding approval from Israels new Heznek programme, administered by the Office of the Chief Scientist.

Tuesday 4th March 2003

The World Semiconductor Trade Statistics organisation reported a 22% year-on-year increase in its January 2003 world sales figures. The January total was $12.2bn consisting of $2.47bn for Europe (+16.0%), $2.71bn for Japan (+34.0%), $4.51bn for Asia-Pacific (+32.6%) and $2.54bn for the Americas (+2.8%).