Most Viewed Stories for the Week of April 13, 2009
David Lammers, News Editor -- Semiconductor International, 4/17/2009
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Variety marks our Top 5 list for this week. Readers looked at stories about reliability measures on the agenda at the upcoming IRPS meeting, Gartner’s final tally on 2008 equipment spending (-31.7%), and Asyst’s lending woes. Rounding out the list were two energy-related stories: one on organic PV materials, and another about how the semiconductor industry can help improve energy efficiency.
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IDMs, Fabless Face Reliability Challenges
David Lammers, News Editor — Semiconductor International, 4/15/2009
Managers from Broadcom, Intel and Xilinx are among the invited speakers at the upcoming International Reliability Physics Symposium. The varying approaches to reliability by the large IDMs and the major fabless vendors that rely on foundries is a theme at this year’s IRPS, scheduled for April 26-30 in Montreal.
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Gartner’s Final Tally: 2008 Equipment Spending Down 31.7%
Staff — Semiconductor International, 4/13/2009
Gartner Inc. said its final results for worldwide semiconductor capital equipment spending totaled $30.7B in 2008, a 31.7% decline from 2007. The market research company said wafer fab equipment declined 32.8% to $24.2B, while back-end equipment decreased 27.2%.
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Asyst Receives Default Letter From KeyBank
Staff — Semiconductor International, 4/15/2009
Asyst Technologies Inc. reported to the SEC that it received a default letter from KeyBank National Association, claiming that Asyst had failed to pay interest and fees on a $76.5M loan. The action means that Asyst will likely see higher borrowing costs going forward.
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Organic PVs Promise Better Efficiency
Alexander E. Braun, Senior Editor — Semiconductor International, 4/9/2009
Canadian researchers have founds ways to improve organic photovoltaics with a “club sandwich” structure. Organic solar cells are easy to put on plastic sheets for roll-to-roll processing, reducing costs. The researchers found out how to “flatten the lettuce” in the multilayered structure, making charges more uniform.
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Energy Efficiency: Semiconductors’ 21st Century Challenge
Pushkar Apte, Daryl Hatano, John Greenagel and George Scalise, Semiconductor Industry Association, San Jose — Semiconductor International, 4/1/2009
Worldwide energy use is growing much faster than traditional supplies can match, but the semiconductor industry can help improve the efficiency of energy generation, distribution and consumption. A big challenge with most alternative energy sources is that they are not cost-competitive with fossil-fuel sources, an area where semiconductor manufacturing technologies can play a big role in reducing production.
