Top Stories

Capacity Tightens as Shortage Fears Rise

As older fabs close and relatively few new fabs are coming online, total fab capacity is staying flat. SICAS reported the number of actual wafer starts per week is improving quickly, while capacity declines. SEMI said installed fab capacity will decline 4% this year, as 31 older fabs close. Low capex spending has analysts predicting chip shortages. More

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North American Engineering Student FPGA Competition Sign-Ups Open
Source: www.altera.com
Date: 10 hours 29 minutes 29 seconds ago.
Rochester Electronics expands space-level manufacturing, radiation-hardened semiconductor offerings

Date: 11-20-2009 19:28:49 GMT
Conquering the Univers(al)
Source: circuitsassembly.com
Date: 11-20-2009 19:43:08 GMT
DDR3 memory transistion next year
Source: embeddedblog.blogspot.com
Date: 11-20-2009 17:04:00 GMT
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Intel Chip Vision: Run Slow to Stay Cool
Keeping power under control at data centers is causing a radical reassessment of chip design, according to Shekhar Borkar, Intel's director of MPU research. Cramming many cores on a die, most of them running at very low frequencies at operating voltages of less than half a volt, is likely to happen over the next decade. And self-aware systems will poll the processors about chip aging issues, such as NBTI.
Packaging: Weathering the Down Cycles
The advanced semiconductor packaging industry has learned how to weather the downcycles and is busy looking ahead to a better year in 2010, said Jim Walker, vice president of semiconductor manufacturing research at Gartner Inc.
Applied to Acquire Semitool for $364M
Applied Materials will acquire Semitool for ~$364M, positioning Applied in the growing markets of wafer-level packaging and copper memory interconnects. Dean Freeman, equipment analyst at Gartner Inc., said the acquisition will give Applied a fresh start in copper deposition, after its internal effort was abandoned two years ago.
Rugged Nano Films to Enable Applications
Stronger nanoparticle films that are easier to handle have been developed by Vanderbilt University researchers. "Our films are so resilient that we can pick them up with a pair of tweezers and move them around on a surface without tearing," said James Dickerson, assistant professor of physics at Vanderbilt.
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Industry Research from In-Stat

Mobile Graphics & Multimedia Review

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Mobile Processor Review

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Blogs
Talkback
Podcast
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Perspectives From the Leading Edge

Philip Garrou, Consultant
November 20, 2009
3D News: Applied / Semitool, TSMC, Ziptronix
Applied By now we have all seen the headlines that Applied Materials has acquired...
More

Images to Devices: The Patterning Business

Mike Watts, Impattern Solutions
November 11, 2009
New Roles for Merchant Mask Makers
Some of the more obscure but interesting news in the patterning business in the...
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Chipworks Inside Angle

Dick James, Senior Technology Analyst
November 05, 2009
Elpida Changes DRAM Capacitor Technology
As a break from the hyper-intensity of our Intel 32-nm analysis, I was scanning...
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Views on News

David Lammers, News Editor, Semiconductor International
August 03, 2009
Memory Takes from SEMICON West
Bob Johnson, the Gartner Inc. semiconductor manufacturing analyst, seems to enjoy...
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It sounds like a GlobalFoundries promotion, instead of a piece of...

Yu-Tai Chia– 11/22/2009 3:00:12 AM CST
in response to The GlobalFoundries Tick-Tock
Cool. But my concern on laser dicing is two-folded: first is the heat affected...

Yu Yang– 11/20/2009 12:48:27 PM CST
in response to RTI 3D ASIP, Aviza, Jenoptik Laser Dicing
Mr. Deferm is certainly correct in his statements that innovation and...

Dr. Dirk Ortloff– 11/18/2009 11:07:42 AM CST
in response to Innovation Through Collaborative R&D More Important Than Ever
Observer - you are correct. Taiwan Inc put a big bet on bumping and WLP and it...

PFTLE– 11/17/2009 2:04:26 PM CST
in response to 3D IC at ITRI

» VIEW ALL TALKBACK THREADS

SIA President Talks About Industry’s Recovery, Future

In this month's podcast, George Scalise, president of the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), talks about the semiconductor industry's prospects at the start of its recovery from one of the worst downturns in history, as well as the challenges it faces in global competition, regulation, and the introduction of new technologies.

The Coming of EUV Lithography – When?

Senior Editor Alexander E. Braun interviews Toppan Photomasks CTO Franklin Kalk at the SPIE Photomask conference about the status of lithography in general and EUV lithography development in particular. Kalk believes considerable work and development still remain to be done for EUV to become a mainstream reality.

»VIEW ALL PODCASTS