A new survey about silicon on insulator (SOI) technology, conducted by the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA) and the SOI Industry Consortium, has revealed that many companies are already using SOI or are interested in evaluating it for power savings at technology nodes starting with 90 nm. SOI technology (which typically involves the use of wafer bonding equipment) electrically insulates a fine layer of the monocrystalline silicon from the rest of the silicon wafer, creating new areas for innovation, delivering performance, power and area advantages that bulk CMOS technologies can't easily match, according to the SOI Industry Consortium. In RF and mixed-signal applications, SOI offers low noise and high-quality passives, which will likely be leveraged in the future to expand SOI into the domain of system-on-a-chip (SoC) applications. If you're interested in more details, the survey results will be available on the GSA and SOI Industry Consortium websites by June 16, 2008. For more advanced packaging news and events, visit our Packaging Technology Channel:

Sally Cole Johnson, Contributing Editor
scolejohnson@mac.com

Survey Reflects Interest in SOI for Low Power
PR Newswire, 6/3/2008

The Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA) and the SOI Industry Consortium jointly announced the completion of a global study focused on SOI. More than 100 semiconductor companies involved in the design of ICs responded to the survey about their needs and perceptions of SOI. 87% of respondents indicated that they are interested in evaluating or are already using SOI, particularly for power savings at mainstream technology nodes starting with 90 nm. The survey also confirms the need to educate the market on available solutions, methodology and training across the global ecosystem, points that are being addressed by the SOI Industry Consortium. More

KLA-Tencor Completes First Stage of ICOS Acquisition
Business Wire, 6/3/2008

KLA-Tencor Corp. announced that it has finalized its purchase of the shares of ICOS Vision Systems, a company that designs and manufactures inspection equipment for semiconductor packaging and interconnect applications. More

FormFactor Appoints CEO, Executive Chairman
Market Wire, 6/3/2008

FormFactor Inc.'s board of directors has appointed Mario Ruscev, currently president, as its next CEO. Ruscev will succeed Igor Khandros, FormFactor's founder, who will become executive chairman of the FormFactor board of directors. Khandros will succeed Jim Prestridge, its current chairman, who will remain on the FormFactor board of directors and become its lead independent director. The changes will become effective at the beginning of the company's fiscal third quarter of 2008. More

Researcher Wins IEEE Award for Work on 3-D Interconnects
States News Service, 5/27/2008

James Jian-Qiang Lu, associate professor at Rensselaer, received the 2008 IEEE CPMT Exceptional Technical Achievement Award as a leader in the field of 3-D packaging and manufacturing. Lu' research spans a wide spectrum of micro- and nano-electronics technology, from theory and design to materials, devices, processing and system integration. More

QuickLogic's ArcticLink Available in WLCSP
Business Wire, 5/28/2008

QuickLogic has made its ArcticLink Customer Specific Standard Product (CSSP) platform available in a tiny wafer-level chip-scale package (WLCSP). More

SUSS Automated Bond Cluster Selected for Korean MEMS Foundry
Business Wire, 5/29/2008

SUSS MicroTec announced that u-ITC has selected the advanced wafer bonding equipment for its MEMS foundry. More

ASE Test Scheme of Arrangement Becomes Effective
PR Newswire, 6/2/2008

Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc. announced that the "going private" acquisition by ASE Inc. of the outstanding ordinary shares of ASE Test became effective on May 30. More