The latest news and information on industries related to semiconductor manufacturing, including nanotechnology, MEMS, photovoltaics/solar cells, displays, and optoelectronics.
Oki Integrates AlGaAs LEDs on Silicon Mounting Chips Kenji Tsuda, Asia Contributing Editor - 04/24/2008
Oki Digital Imaging Corp. is in mass production with LED print heads that use a film bonding technique to integrate AlGaAs epitaxial layers on CMOS silicon ICs. The approach avoids wasting valuable space on bonding pads, resulting in higher-density arrays for LED print heads, Oki managers said at the INC4 conference in Tokyo. More
Applied Q2 sales down 15% y/y, sees cycle bottom mid-year By Ann Steffora Mutschler, Senior Editor - 05/14/2008
Santa Clara, Calif.-based semiconductor, display and solar panel manufacturing equipment giant Applied Materials Inc reported net sales for its fiscal Q2 ended April 27 that were down 15% from fiscal Q2 2007, and up 3% from fiscal Q1. Company execs noted on a call with Wall Street analysts that it expects fiscal Q3 to mark the bottom in silicon revenues.
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Splinter Sees Weak Order Period Looming for Equipment Vendors David Lammers, News Editor - 05/13/2008
Applied Materials CEO Michael Splinter said the third fiscal quarter may see silicon equipment sales drop by 40% from the second fiscal quarter ending April 27, representing the bottom of the current downcycle. Orders from flash vendors in particular have been less than expected. One bright spot was introduction of the Aera2 mask inspection system, which is being used by four customers now, he said.
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Sunfilm to ramp tandem Applied thin film photovoltaic lines By Ann Steffora Mutschler, Senior Editor - 05/13/2008
Aiming to set a new solar industry benchmark by manufacturing the world’s first tandem junction, silicon thin film photovoltaic modules on 5.7-square-meter glass panels, Germany-based Sunfilm AG, which was formed last year, said today that it will purchase a second SunFab thin film solar panel manufacturing line from Applied Materials.
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Applied SunFab service aims to optimize solar manufacturing efficiency By Ann Steffora Mutschler, Senior Editor - 05/12/2008
To guarantee the performance cost and output of its SunFab thin film equipment line for producing solar modules, Santa Clara, Calif.-based semiconductor, display and solar panel manufacturing equipment giant Applied Materials Inc today detailed its SunFab Performance Service program that aims to allow continuous cost reduction based on megawatt output.
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Nanometrics targets solar manufacturing industry with Tevet acquisition By Ann Steffora Mutschler, Senior Editor - 05/09/2008
To broaden its integrated metrology product line, Milpitas, Calif.-based semiconductor metrology company Nanometrics Inc this week said it has acquired Tevet Process Control Technologies Ltd based in Yoknea’m, Israel, through an all-cash asset purchase transaction.
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DuPont plans China photovoltaic R&D, production plant By Ann Steffora Mutschler, Senior Editor - 05/07/2008
To support its role in the rapidly growing photovoltaic solar energy industry, DuPont will soon begin construction on a research center in Hong Kong and a manufacturing facility in Shenzhen.
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Qimonda Enters Solar Cell Manufacturing With Centrosolar Staff - 05/05/2008
DRAM maker Qimonda AG will partner with Centrosolar AG to build a solar cell manufacturing plant in Vila do Conde, Portugal. The plant will make 30 million solar cells per year when it begins production next year.
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The Measure of All Things Alexander E. Braun, Senior Editor, Semiconductor International May 13, 2008 A Modest Proposal
For decades now, there has been a desperate wringing of hands and loud, roaring noise... More
Dan Herr is director of Nanomanufacturing Science Research at SRC. An important part of his research focuses on nanotechnology’s demands on metrology, and he discusses his work to determine where metrology technology’s gaps are, and how to fill them.
LED Design, Optimization Using TCAD Modeling Ricardo Borges, Wei-Choon Ng and Gergö Letay, Synopsys Inc., Mountain View, Calif., 04/01/2008
TCAD modeling is widely used in semiconductor manufacturing simulation and analysis routines, from wafer track schedulers to yield management systems. The optoelectronics industry is now applying TCAD to its manufacturing processes, enabling control of process variations and improved yields....
WLP Could Transform MOEMS, MEMS Herwig Kirchberger, EV Group, St. Florian, Austria, 04/01/2008
True wafer-level packaging could dramatically reduce the cost of M(O)EMS manufacturing. MOEMS packages require optical transparency at the operating wavelength of the individual sensors and actuators, in addition to the conventional packaging requirements of MEMS....
Metrology Drives Nanotech Progress Alexander E. Braun, Senior Editor, 12/01/2007
All aspects of nanotechnology, whether working with MEMS or carbon nanotubes, require a high degree of metrology to enable manufacturing processes and device integration....
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LED Design, Optimization Using TCAD Modeling
