News From Lexis Nexis

Global sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment by Japan-based companies jumped 77% in January.

Alchimer SA, which provides deposition technology for semiconductor interconnects and through-silicon vias (TSVs), has opened a new applications and development facility in Seoul, South Korea, to demonstrate its processes on 300 mm wafers. The facility will begin accepting customers' wafers in April.

SUSS MicroTec has received orders for multiple 300 mm lithography systems from packaging provider Amkor Technology Inc. Equipment includes MA300 Gen2 mask aligner systems and ACS300 Gen2 wafer processing clusters for wafer-level packaging, wafer bumping and 3-D integration technology.

Cascade Microtech Inc. today announced the release of its Edge 1/f (flicker) noise measurement solution with 1 Hz to 40 MHz coverage. The Edge module is a field-upgradable retrofit to most Cascade Microtech probe stations and includes software tools for 1/f noise modeling and statistical analysis, which support noise measurement up to 10 MHz.

Novellus Systems has developed a copper barrier-seed physical vapor deposition (PVD) process for the emerging through-silicon-via (TSV) packaging market.

Vistec Lithography said Yale University, selected Vistec's EBPG5000plus electron-beam lithography system for its future nanotechnology research programs.

According to the World Fab Forecast report released recently by SEMI, 2010 spending on worldwide fab projects, including construction, facilities, and equipping, could grow by 88% over 2009 levels.

Applied Materials, Inc. announced that its Board of Directors has approved a 17% increase in the quarterly cash dividend to $0.07 per share, and a new stock repurchase program.

 The official opening of the new sales, application and service site in the southern Korean city of Pyeongtaek (Gyeonggi province) took place on March 8. Jenoptik invested $4.4M.

SEMI said China policy makers have targeted repurposed and renewed fabs utilizing new and refurbished process equipment as a key element in the national goal to "close the chip gap."

Corning said the company's LCD glass production in Taiwan has not been impacted by the level 5 earthquake that shook Taiwan yesterday.

QED Technologiesannounces implementation of one of its new Aspheric Stitching Interferometers at the Leibniz Institute for Surface Modification (IOM) in Leipzig, Germany.

X-FAB Silicon Foundries offered an embedded non-volatile random-access memory (NVRAM) process feature.

Showa Denko K.K. will start commercial production of high-purity cyclohexanone in Zhejiang Province, China in August 2010.

Pure Wafer plc said it can convert the scrap material from its silicon wafer reclaim line into high efficiency single crystal photovoltaic cells.

An Executive Session at DATE will  cover "Impacts of Continuous Scaling  on the Semiconductor Industry."     

Intel gave 16 companies its Preferred Quality Supplier (PQS) award.

Intel Corporation honored 10 companies today with its Supplier Continuous Quality Improvement (SCQI) award for 2009.

University of Arizona and Arizona State University researchers developed an Electro-Chemical Residue Sensor (ECRS) which allows for clean, rinse and dry process optimization.

The Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International issued the following news release: According to the World Fab Forecast report released recently by SEMI, 2010 spending on worldwide fab projects, including construction, facilities, and equipping, could grow by 88% over 2009 levels. Since June 2009, SEMI's World Fab Forecast has consistently predicted spending growth rate of more than 60 percent (%) for 2010.