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The power shortages affecting polysilicon producers in Japan has already had a positive impact on business at Siltronic, a division of Wacker Chemie. In the first quarter, Siltronic posted sales of €280.2 million, compared to €219.1 million in the same period a year ago, an increase of 28%. Read more >>

Inspection and re-qualifying of production equipment and systems is ongoing at MEMC’s wafer plant in Utsunomiya, Japan. Improvements in power supply have led to an unspecified amount of 300mm production just over a month since the largest earthquake to hit Japan occurred on March 11.  MEMC noted that it expected to return to full 300mm wafer production by the middle of May, 2011. Read more >>

The Semiconductor materials market revenues totalled US$43.55 billion in 2010, up 25% compared to 2009, according to the latest report for SEMI. Record device shipments were achieved, surpassing the previous high of US$42.67 billion set in 2007. Read more >>

Polysilicon and wafer producer, SUMCO Corporation said that following the earthquake, the operations of the Yonezawa Plant (Yonezawa, Yamagata) had been suspended. SUMCO noted that none of the workers at the plant suffered injury. Read more >>

A key collaboration has been formed between DuPont Microcircuit Materials and Holst Centre that will focus research on printed electronic structures on flexible substrates for flexible display, RFID, lighting, biomedical and Organic Photovoltaic (OPV) markets. Read more >>

Silicon wafer shipments as expected recovered strongly in 2010 as fab utilization rates increased and the industry posted strong growth for the year. According to the SEMI Silicon Manufacturers Group (SMG), worldwide silicon wafer area shipments increased by 40% last year with shipments equal to 9,370 million square inches (MSI), a new record high. Read more >>

MEMC saw semiconductor wafer sales increase 26% last year on the back of market share gains, industry recovery and higher wafer pricing. Net sales for the fourth quarter were US$262.6 million in the sector and US$850.1 million overall. Segment operating profit was US$25.6 million, compared to US$26.2 million in the third quarter, and a loss of $9.6 million in the prior year quarter. Read more >>

Having been awarded the Defense Production Act Title III gallium nitride (GaN) manufacturing development contract, TriQuint Semiconductor will be supplied GaN based wafers from IQE. The programme is expected to conclude in 2013. Read more >>

Sigma-Aldrich through its Aldrich Materials Science business, said it was distributing Nanosys-created silicon nanowires to the global scientific research community. According to Sigma-Aldrich the fabrication of nanowires is challenging, so the supply deal is intended to further foster the development of a variety of new high-technology applications that can continue to open up exciting end product markets. Read more >>

Solar and semiconductor start-up Solar Semi Engineering (SSE) has completed the acquisition of the business and assets of Edwards’ Chemical Management Europe (CME) division. The deal, the cost of which was not disclosed, will see SSE continue the marketing of Edwards’ CME products along with its own wet process equipment to the solar and semiconductor manufacturing industries. Read more >>