Online information source for semiconductor professionals
Blogs
Editor's Blog
The blog is written by Semiconductor Fabtech's Editor-in-Chief, Mark Osborne. He has been covering the semiconductor and related industries for over ten years. Mark has been blogging tech since 2005.Micron re-enters NOR flash business
11 February 2010
Guest blog by Jim Handy, Objective AnalysisLate Tuesday Micron announced that the company had signed a definitive agreement to acquire Numonyx in an all-stock transaction. Micron will issue 140 million shares of the company's common stock, worth approximately $1.27 billion, to Numonyx shareholders Intel, STMicroelectronics, and Francisco Partners. The NOR flash market has been a difficult one for nearly all participants. Leaders Numonyx and Spansion have suffered losses for several years, with Spansion recently turning a profit through a strategy largely focused upon markets for low-density parts used by markets outside of cell handsets, the largest consumer of NOR flash. Micron itself participated in NOR starting in the late 1990s, but abandoned this effort in 2006. Read more >>
Bill McClean, IC Insights: 10 Reasons to be optimistic about the IC industry in 2010
05 February 2010
Are you uncertain about the 2010 IC industry recovery? It may help to consider these actual data points and current expectations that offer support for an increasingly positive outlook for the IC industry this year. The 10 points listed should provide the reader with some encouragement with regard to the IC industry and its suppliers in 2010. Is it clear skies and smooth sailing for the rest of the year? Not, quite. Some potential “pot holes” on the road to 2010 success include: a possible spike in oil prices to greater than US$100 barrel; a major terrorist attack that weakens consumer confidence and the economy along with it; and/or, another major shock to the financial system like a major collapse of a country’s economy.
Read more >>RIP, R&D: New innovation models taking hold as semiconductor industry’s R&D progress slows
14 January 2010
Guest blog by Tod Higinbotham, Executive Vice President, Process Solutions, ATMIThe recent economic downturn has taught us that semiconductor technology research and development must change if the industry is to prosper. Circuit design, advanced materials, and innovative process and process flows compel our industry to rethink outdated R&D techniques as we search for a better way to realize the potential of today’s most advanced integrated circuit technology. Read more >>
Bill McClean, IC Insights: The “Reset” Economy and the 2010 IC Industry
06 January 2010
In 4Q08, General Electric’s chief executive Jeff Immelt coined the term “reset economy.” He used this phrase in an attempt to describe what he expected to be a very different world after the global economic crisis came to an end as compared to before the meltdown. His belief was that businesses, governments, and consumers would operate very differently in the post-crisis economy and that GE needed to adjust to this new environment.
Read more >>What has Applied Materials raided from Semitool?
26 November 2009
On the surface (pun intended) there would seem to be of little interest or need to know more about the recent acquisition by Applied Materials of a small cap semiconductor equipment supplier, Semitool. The Montana-based wet processing specialist has been around for a long-time and perhaps because of where it is based, compared with many equipment suppliers clustered in Silicon Valley, it gets little attention in comparison. However, solar cell producers may well find that they get a knock on the cleanroom door soon from Applied, to discuss porous silicon processes and a wet processing tool called the ‘Raider.’
Read more >>Chip Shots
The Chip Shots blog channels the observations of Fabtech's and PV-Tech/Photovoltaic International's Senior Contributing Editor--USA, Tom Cheyney, a 20-year veteran of semiconductor, advanced micro/nanoelectronics, and solar manufacturing trade journalism. For 15 years, Tom was editor in chief of MICRO (the original home of Chip Shots) until it ceased publication in July 2006. Tom calls Los Angeles home. View MICRO Magazine archive.Cross-pollinator: Ascent Solar’s new boss Farhad Moghadam gets his geek back on
26 October 2009
Farhad Moghadam loves to make semiconductor analogies when he talks
about his corner of solar photovoltaics. The former Applied Materials
and Intel exec is wearing a new hat these days as he marks his third
month as president/CEO of Ascent Solar. The company just announced its latest conversion efficiency numbers
for its copper-indium-gallium-(di)selenide thin-film PV cells (14.1%
peak) and modules (11.7% peak, 10.5%-plus median) and will be ramping
its roll-to-roll CIGS-on-polyimide process to volume scale in its Thornton, CO, factory early next year.
Read more >>Rudolph likely to leverage Adventa process control IP into solar space
04 August 2009
Rudolph Technologies' acquisition of Adventa Control Technologies for an undisclosed wad of cash has immediate implications for those trying to keep their semiconductor manufacturing processes, equipment, and factories under tight control. ACT's software lurks in some 80% of those fabs, with somewhere upwards of 18,000 of its systems installed. The buy certainly won't hurt Rudolph's bottom line either, as the addition of ACT should double the revenues of the company's data analysis and review biz unit. But the move by Rudolph, which launched its own photovoltaic-specific Solar Discover process control and yield management package earlier this year (and which is already an option on Spire's turnkey cell lines), may also end up benefitting the PV production crowd. To read the rest of the blog, click here to go to pv-tech.org.
Read more >>A few words from Lehman on why DRAM, solar industries don’t compare, but polysilicon does
10 September 2008
The news has been grim
for Lehman Brothers today, but one part of the giant investment bank
that's doing yeoman work is its solar energy equity research group, led
by analyst Vishal Shah. His daily email newsletter and periodic reports
are some of the most informative and cogent in the space.
Read more >>SMIC plows ahead with process migration plans, but will chip foundry ever make money?
09 September 2008
Since its inception, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., better known as SMIC,
has pursued an aggressive plan to join the elite chip foundry
companies. During the Chinese firm's chase of the big two--TSMC and
UMC--it passed Chartered to ascend to the number-three slot a couple of
years ago, although it has been nip and tuck with the Singaporean
concern since then, alternating between third and fourth place. But the
one cornerstone of SMIC's gameplan where it has failed miserably is one
of the most basic to any business model--profitability.
Read more >>
National Semiconductor execs are all smiles when it comes to SolarMagic
08 September 2008
National Semiconductor may have seen net income slip a bit in its latest quarterly results,
but Brian Halla and his team have shown no erosion in their excitement
over the company's initial product foray into the photovoltaics market
space, launched in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008: SolarMagic.
Read more >>