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Axcelis Technologies’ Board of Directors has rejected the $6.00 per share offer for the company by Sumitomo Heavy Industries. Axcelis cited the continued under-valuation such an offer makes when considering Axcelis’s business potential with its suite of Optima implant tools and the value in SEN, the joint venture implant business between Axcelis and SHI, the Axcelis board said in a statement. Read more >>

With the introduction of new advanced materials and processes for its 45nm technology node migration in 2007, Intel Corporation has acknowledged some of its suppliers that were critical to its ability to migrate to the new node within its Preferred Quality Supplier (PQS) awards for 2007. A total of 35 suppliers were honored. Read more >>

Applied Materials retained the top spot of semiconductor equipment suppliers, according to the 2007 rankings by revenue from VLSI Research. Tokyo Electron and ASML remained in second and third spots respectively, the sixth consecutive year all three leading suppliers retained their positions, according to the market research firm. Read more >>

Air Liquide Electronics has cited ‘serious tensions in the supply chain’ with respect to silane (monosilane, SiH4), forcing the company to raise prices immediately for silane by 20 percent as contracts allow. The move comes closely behind Air Liquide’s announcement on the 6th of March, 2008 that it plans to triple silane production. Read more >>

Chartered Semiconductor has honored its best suppliers for 2007 at a ceremony held in Singapore. In the equipment category, the Gold Supplier Award went to Dainippon Screen Singapore with Applied Materials Asia the follow-up Silver Supplier Award winner.  Sumco Techxiv and National Oxygen picked up the Gold and Silver awards respectively in the materials supplier category. In the services category the Gold award went to IBM Singapore and the Silver Award to Hewlett-Packard Singapore. Read more >>

Stockholders of both ON Semiconductor and AMIS Holdings have voted on the proposed acquisition of the latter by ON Semiconductor. With more than 90% of the votes leaning in favour of the stock-for-stock merger, the companies expect the matter to be closed by March 17th subject to satisfaction of customary closing conditions. Read more >>

In cooperation with a leading Japanese EUV mask supplier, Vistec Semiconductor noted at the recent European Mask and Lithography Conference (EMLC) in Dresden, Germany, that it published new registration metrology results on EUV masks using its LMS IPRO4. The results showed that measurement repeatability on EUV masks proved to be better than 0.8nm and accuracy was below 1.6nm (3 sigma) over the entire active array of 100 x 128mm.

 

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Novellus Systems has reached the 100th shipped 300mm tool to Southeast Asia with the successful qualification of a ‘VECTOR Express’ plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) system at TECH Semiconductor’s 300mm DRAM fab in Singapore, the company said. Read more >>

Entrepix, Inc. has quadrupled its cleanroom space at its Tempe, Arizona facility with the addition of a 5,000 square foot facility to contain the company’s extended equipment and services. Increased demand for CMP-related services has meant that the company’s current facility size was unsuitable and merited an expansion. Read more >>

Austria-based NanoTecCenter Weiz Forschungsgesellschaft mbH (NTC Weiz) has placed an order with EV Group for an EVG620 precision alignment system. NTC Weiz will use the system for its new R&D facility, which will be focussed on organic/plastic electronic technologies. Read more >>