This time last year, Texas Instruments announced its top suppliers, just like they did today. The problem was that the wording was identical two years in a row, though the companies honored in the list were different. 

Going back to December when AMD held an analyst conference in New York, Hector Ruiz and his current executive team wanted to convey the theme of the glass being half full rather than half empty. The problem was that no analysts came away from that meeting feeling that things were looking good. 

SEMI has taken the right step in introducing a new product awards mechanism for this year’s SEMICON West show, which replaces the past rendition that focused on just innovations from start-ups. The new system means that ‘ANY’ equipment/product/materials etc. company, old and new, can enter the competition. 

Three bits of news released this week raised more questions than gave answers, enough to remind me that curiosity killed the cat. 

The problem of the missing fab(s) was sorted very quickly with the announcement that Toshiba - with SanDisk, its NAND flash manufacturing buddy - would build two, not one new monster-sized 300mm fabs as part of their plan for world domination in that market. 

Reuters is citing sources from both Micron and Nanya Technology that a joint venture agreement has been signed between the two, a deal that includes Micron licensing its DRAM process technology and which could lead to more collaboration. 

Reuters is all over the alleged news that Toshiba and SanDisk are getting ready to start construction of two new 300mm fabs at a cost of $16.7 billion. The news arises from a news story in the Nikkei business daily, which follows on from several other Japanese stories on the subject last week. 

Varian Semiconductor (VSEA) said in 2005 that it would gain market share in 2006. It did. Then the ion implantation equipment supplier said it would gain further market share in 2006. Based on preliminary quick financial benchmark figures, it would seem VSEA did it again in 2007, but even more significantly than in the last two years!