Online information source for semiconductor professionals

The usual suppliers that include the major sector players and host of Japanese firms dominated Intel’s Preferred Quality Supplier (PQS) award system in 2011. However, the word ‘velocity’ has become the new measuring stick, with Nikon winning an ‘Achievement’ category award for ‘velocity.’ In total 19 companies received Intel’s PQS honour in 2011 and 2 companies as Achievement winners. In the Supplier Continuous Quality Improvement (SCQI) award category system, Intel acknowledged 9 suppliers in 2011. Read more >>

Spansion and SK Hynix have announced that they will work together to deliver Spansion SLC NAND products at the 4x, 3x, and 2x nodes to the embedded market. The alliance, which will make its first Spansion SLC NAND products available from the second quarter of 2012, will see the companies enter into a patent cross-licensing agreement in order to facilitate commercial manufacture.

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Elpida Memory has had its stock removed from the Tokyo stock market after filing for bankruptcy protection on February 27th 2011. Elpida began trading shares on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in November 2004 but has reported losses in all five quarters preceding December 31st 2011.

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Karl-Henrik Sundström, vice president and CFO of Dutch-based NXP Semiconductors, has stepped down from his position for personal reasons, effective July 2012.

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Globalfoundries said that it has agreed terms with AMD to acquire the remaining stake the fables firm had in the company, three-years after spinning-off its IC manufacturing operations. Read more >>

The Plastics Electronics Conference, co-located with SEMICON Europa since 2010, has been acquired by trade group, SEMI. The conference the organizing committee, which included industry and academic leaders in the field of organic and inorganic large area electronics (OLAE will serve as a Plastic Electronics Special Interest Group, guiding SEMI activities and services worldwide. SEMI said the conference and exhibition format would be extended to other regions in the future. Read more >>

Citing a DRAM glut, weak pricing and a strong Yen currency, Elpida Memory has filed for bankruptcy protection in an effort to restructure the company. A ‘sponsor’ is being sort, though it was clear from Micron Technology management recently that they were interested in some deal with Elpida. The company has debts of approximately US$5.5 billion.  Read more >>

Friday, February 3rd, Micron Technology issued a short statement announcing Chairman and CEO, Steve Appleton had been killed in a light aircraft crash near Boise, Idaho. Mr Appleton was married with chidren and was 51 years of age. In a follow-up statement, Micron said that President and Chief Operating Officer and former CTO, Mark Durcan would assume the responsibilities of CEO until a successor is appointed by the Board of Directors. Mr Appleton had been a passionate flyer, having taken part in acrobatic air displays and had owned a former MIG jet fighter. He had been previously injured in a light aircraft plane crash during an air display. Read more >>

Monthly sales figures from TSMC for December, 2011 indicated revenue fell 13.2% from the prior month to NT$30.57 billion. Full-year sales for 2011 totalled NT$418.25 billion, an increase of 2.8% compared to 2010.

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The strong spurt in spending at semiconductor foundries so early in the year means that Deutsche Bank has revised its CapEx spending forecast for the industry. Instead of an expected CapEx decline in the range of 15-20% in 2012, compared to 2011, financial analysts at the bank believe spending will only be down between 10-15% versus its prior expectations. Read more >>