Wednesday 1st January 2003
Singapore's Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing foundry announced a joint
technology agreement with IMEC, Europe's leading independent R&D centre for
microelectronics. As a result, Chartered will be offering a 0.18micron
silicon germanium (SiGe) BiCMOS manufacturing capability by H2 2003.
Chartered is joining IMEC's Industrial Affiliation Program on 0.18micron
BiCMOS. This aims at technology optimised for low power, low noise RF
applications in the 2-5GHz range. A preliminary process design kit is due
from Chartered in Q3 2003. Pilot production is expected by the end of that
year.
Wednesday 1st January 2003
Singapore's Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing foundry announced a joint
technology agreement with IMEC, Europe's leading independent R&D centre for
microelectronics. As a result, Chartered will be offering a 0.18micron
silicon germanium (SiGe) BiCMOS manufacturing capability by H2 2003.
Chartered is joining IMEC's Industrial Affiliation Program on 0.18micron
BiCMOS. This aims at technology optimised for low power, low noise RF
applications in the 2-5GHz range. A preliminary process design kit is due
from Chartered in Q3 2003. Pilot production is expected by the end of that
year.
Wednesday 1st January 2003
TSMC is planning a $1.1bn construction of a 200mm 0.25micron facility in
China, according to a letter of intent signed with Shanghai's Sonjiang
district government. Production would begin in September 2003. Over eight
years, TSMC could invest $10bn in the fab.
Wednesday 1st January 2003
Microchip Technology has completed its acquisition of a semiconductor
manufacturing complex in Gresham from Fujitsu Microelectronics for $183.5mn
in cash.
Microchip expects that initial hiring will reach approximately 60 people
during pre-production phases. Over time, Microchip believes it could employ
360 people as the Gresham facility reaches high volume manufacturing
capacity over the next five to six years.
Wednesday 1st January 2003
Trikon Technologies, the Welsh process equipment manufacturer, has announced
that it will reduce its staff numbers by 20% as part of a payroll reduction
programme. Details of the cuts were discussed with staff at the end of
August and will be finalised by September 30, 2002. The aim is to reduce
quarterly operating costs by $4mn a year. Nigel Wheeler, president and CEO,
said that the present poor market conditions with no visible recovery were
the key factors in the decision. The cuts will affect all areas of the
company with 400 staff worldwide.
Wednesday 1st January 2003
Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) is to
Wednesday 1st January 2003
The DoD smartcards began rolling out in October
2001 to provide 4mn civilian and military employees and certain contractors
with a single standard means of physical identification in access to
buildings and computer networks. The cards are produced by SchlumbergerSema.
Wednesday 1st January 2003
Honeywell's Electronic Materials business has been awarded US patents on
sputtering target technology (Nos.6,323,055 B1, 6,331,233 B1 and 6,348,139
B1).
A new tantalum refining method designed to reduce impurities such as
molybdenum, tungsten and niobium is covered by No.6,323,055 B1.
A process for fabricating tantalum sputtering targets with a uniform texture
throughout the material and no textural banding is covered by No.6,331,233
B1. This patent also covers thin films of tantalum made from the sputtering
targets using this method.
Wednesday 1st January 2003
World chip sales were $11.7bn in July, according to the World Semiconductor
Trade Statistics organisation. This represents an 8% improvement on July
2001, the first year-on-year increase since February 2001. However, the
increase is based on a 37.4% year-on-year increase in the Asia-Pacific
region, with sales in July 2002 at $4.26bn. This hides declines in the other
regions - 4.3% down in Europe, 3.4% down in the Americas and 4.0% down in
Japan. European sales were $2.16bn in July 2002.
Wednesday 1st January 2003
STMicroelectronics claims that environmental conservation and recycling
saved it $29m in absolute terms. The breakdown was $5m saved in energy
bills, $4.5m in water costs and $19.5m in chemicals. The company plans to be
carbon dioxide neutral by 2010. This is to be achieved by reducing total
energy consumption by 5% a year for each $1m of added value, adopting
alternative and renewable energy and taking part in reforestation
programmes.
These results are part of ST's latest corporate environmental report, in
which ST repeats its belief that
Wednesday 1st January 2003
Asyst Technologies is moving to outsource most of its manufacturing
operations to Solectron under a five-year supply agreement.
Solectron will assume operational control of most of Asyst's manufacturing
operations, which will be transitioned to Solectron's facilities in North
America and Asia over the next six to 12 months. In addition, Solectron will
buy from Asyst about $20mn of inventory to support production. Asyst's
remaining $20mn of inventory consists primarily of finished goods and spare
parts.
Wednesday 1st January 2003
MEMSCAP is shipping samples of low-port count photonic switches and variable
optical attenuators (VOAs), aimed at the metro and access levels of the
telecoms network. The switch samples are in evaluation at major customer
sites. They are the first products out of MEMSCAP's fully automated,
high-volume MEMS fabrication facility in Bernin, France. Insertion losses
range from 0.5dB to 1.0dB, with a switching speed of 1msec. The foundry is
equipped to handle both 150mm and 200mm wafers.
Wednesday 1st January 2003
Axcelis Technologies has completed its acquisition of Tritek International's
semiconductor equipment division in China (Bulletin 442, July 22, 2002).
Tritek's semiconductor equipment division will become part of Axcelis
Technologies China, bringing the total China workforce to 40 people. Tritek
is one of China's leading semiconductor equipment distribution and support
firms.
Wednesday 1st January 2003
Philips Electronics and Intersil plan to jointly develop a reference design
based on a Philips chipset and Intersil laser driver for DVD+RW/+R
(DVD+ReWriteable/+Recordable) drives. The reference design for both PC and
standalone DVD recorders will support 4X record speeds, and has the
potential to support speeds up to 12X. With DVD recorders based on this
reference design, consumers will have the ability to create 4.7GByte video
or data DVDs in fewer than 15 minutes, twice the speed of existing DVD
recorders, claim the companies. The reference design will be offered to a
broad range of DVD+RW manufacturers, including Philips.
Wednesday 1st January 2003
ASML order activity has slowed, according to reports in the Financial Times.
Machines due to ship in H1 2003 have been hit by the scale back. ASML says
its customers are taking a
Wednesday 1st January 2003
A US district court has denied a Therma-Wave motion for a preliminary
injunction against Boxer Cross in a patent infringement case (Bulletins 437,
June 17, 2002; 430, April 30, 2002). The court noted:
Wednesday 1st January 2003
In-Stat/MDR reports that 109m image sensors worth $1.2bn were shipped in
2001. This represents a unit increase from 2000's of just under 100m.
Revenues are flat with 2000's $1.2bn. The company expects that 2004 will be
the year that CMOS image sensors take over from charge-coupled devices (CCD)
as the leading electronic image technology in terms of units. CCDs are
expected to lead in revenues beyond 2006.
Wednesday 1st January 2003
Intel is expecting Q3 revenues to be slightly below the mid range of its
previous guidance of $6.3-6.9bn. The range has been narrowed to $6.3-6.7bn.
Microprocessor units sales are at the lower end of seasonal patterns, but
Flash memory is in line with expectations.
Wednesday 1st January 2003
German high performance BiCMOS foundry start-up Communicant Semiconductor
Technologies and its technology partner Innovations for High Performance
microelectronics (IHP) claim best-in-class SiGe:C BiCMOS. A ring oscillator
constructed in the technology has achieved a 4.2ps gate delay. Earlier this
year, IBM reported SiGe ring oscillators with measured time delays of 4.3ps
(Bulletin 421, February 25, 2002).
Wednesday 1st January 2003
An Aixtron Tricent MOCVD reactor has been installed at the University of
Magdeburg's new cleanroom facility for non-volatile memory material
research. Magdeburg and Aixtron plan joint research activities on new
precursors and related physical properties for the materials strontium
bismuth tantalate (SBT) and lead zirconium tantalate (PZT) for future
non-volatile ferroelectric memory (FeRAM) applications. Such memories would
combine the ultra-fast read/write times of DRAMs with the non-volatile
properties of EEPROMs.
Wednesday 1st January 2003
Manganese-doped gallium phosphide has been found to be ferromagnetic above
room temperature (Physical Review Letters, September 2, 2002) in work
carried out with collaboration between the University of Florida and Lucent
Technologies Bell Laboratories. The ferromagnetic property peaks at
3atomic%. While low temperature behaviour suggests ferromagnetism up to a
Curie temperature of 385K, the experimental value is 270K (below 0C).
Wednesday 1st January 2003
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC) has filed an application regarding
plans for a fab investment project in Mainland China. The application was
filed with the Investment Committee of Taiwan's Ministry of Economic
Affairs. After obtaining government approval, the company plans to establish
a 100% wholly-owned subsidiary in Mainland China, for the purpose of
building a 200mm fab in the Songjiang Science Park in Shanghai and to
provide foundry services in Mainland China.
Wednesday 1st January 2003
Advanced Photonix' board of directors has unanimously rejected an
unsolicited and conditional takeover offer from OSI Systems. OSIS is a
direct competitor of API. The board is reviewing appropriate steps designed
to insure that the company can maintain its independence. Advanced Photonix
supplies silicon-based electro-optical products and designs to OEMs.
Products include patented Large Area Avalanche Photodiode (LAAPD) and
FILTRODE detectors, as well as PIN photodiodes.
Wednesday 1st January 2003
AMD and UMC plan to jointly develop advanced process control (APC)
technology for 300mm semiconductor manufacturing.
APC aims at minimising costs, maximising productivity, ensuring consistent
high quality and facilitating real-time adjustments to the manufacturing
process for improved yields. APC techniques include run-to-run control (RtR)
and fault detection and classification (FDC). RtR minimises process drift
and variation by providing real-time, automated feed-forward and feedback
adjustments to process tools. FDC reduces wafer losses by monitoring and
proactively shutting down complex tools before machine drift can adversely
affect device yields.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- 57
- 58
- 59
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- 64
- 65
- 66
- 67
- 68
- 69
- 70
- 71
- 72
- 73
- 74
- 75
- 76
- 77
- 78
- 79
- 80
- 81
- 82
- 83
- 84
- 85
- 86
- 87
- 88
- 89
- 90
- 91
- 92
- 93
- 94
- 95
- 96
- 97
- 98
- 99
- 100
- 101
- 102
- 103
- 104
- 105
- 106
- 107
- 108
- 109
- 110
- 111
- 112
- 113
- 114
- 115
- 116
- 117
- 118
- 119
- 120
- 121
- 122
- 123
- 124
- 125
- 126
- 127
- 128
- 129
- 130
- 131
- 132
- 133
- 134
- 135
- 136
