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Business News
European industries fall in
the Q1 2005 chip ranking
Europe's Infineon Technologies AG,
STMicroelectronics NV and Philips
Semiconductors lost ground in the semiconductor
market in the first quarter of 2005 in contrast to the
success of Japanese rivals Renesas Technology
Corp. and Toshiba Corp., according to figures from
market research company iSuppli Corp. The overall
market registered $56.99 billion in the first quarter,
3.1 percent down on the $58.79 billion chip sales
iSuppli estimated for the fourth quarter of 2004.
Infineon lost two ranking places to sixth, ST lost two
places to rank seventh and Philips swapped the
ninth spot for the number ten spot with Freescale
Semiconductor. No reasoning was given for
Europe's poor performance, by iSuppli, although
the relative strength of the euro in a dollar-denominated
industry will have played a part.
http://www.isuppli.com
Semiconductors
IBM plans to cut more than 10,000 position, mostly in Europe
IBM plans to cut between 10,000 and 13,000 positions worldwide and to reorganize its management structure.
The changes will mostly affect IBM's European operations and will result in a charge of between $1.3 billion
and $1.7 billion in the second quarter this year and "yield benefits" in the second half of the year, said the
company.
The restructuring was expected following Big Blue's disappointing first-quarter 2005 earnings.
http://www.ibm.com
Suss MicroTec extends its
wafer probe with its Multi IZI
Probe ®
Techno News
SUSS MicroTec AG has extended their wafer probe
range to include the Multi IZI Probe, offering up to
eight independent RF transmission lines with 50 Ohm
impedance.
The probe can be individually configured with RF and
DC contacts for mixed-mode testing of RF and DC
components using one wafer probe. For full flexibility,
other electrical components and even integrated circuits
can also be placed directly on the probe. To
ensure perfect contact at every touchdown, the SUSS
Multi IZI Probe is made with long contact springs that
move independently from one another. The precise
contact quality also makes the Multi IZI Probe highly
reliable, according to the company.
http://www.suss.com
EV Group installs mask aligner
tool at SiTek Electro
Optics
EV Group (EVG), a leading global supplier of waferbonding
and lithography equipment, has added
Sweden´s SiTek Electro Optics to its customer base
with the installation of an EVG620 fully automated, cassette-to-cassette,
double-side mask aligner. SiTek has
designed, manufactured and sold state-of-the-art position-sensing
detectors (PSDs) since 1976. The company´s
PSDs are opto-electronic devices that convert incident
light spots into continuous position data.
http://www.evgroup.com
Leica Microsystems
exceeds expectations for
mask metrology equipment
Leica Microsystems reports strong demand for its
new LWM9000 SEM CD measurement system for
the 65 nm technology node. During the past year,
well-known photomask manufacturers in the semiconductor
industry have ordered nine systems.
Another five systems are set for delivery, with Asian
countries currently representing the biggest market
for Leica Microsystems’ semiconductor equipment
division.
In the same time, the company appoints two new
Sales Managers for the Microelectronic Inspection
Equipment (MIE) business unit in Wetzlar,
Germany: Thomas Breser and Maarten Kramer.
http://www.leica-microsystems.com
IMEC announces research
advances in sub-45-nm
Together with its CMOS core partners, IMEC will
announce several research breakthroughs in new
gate-stack technologies and multiple-gate FET
(MuGFET) devices at the 2005 Symposium on
VLSI Technology. A combination of advances in
MuGFETs and gate-stack technology paired with
lithography improvements also resulted in a new
record for a fully working 6-transistor SRAM cell
of just 0.274µm 2 in area.
http://www.imec.be
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July 2005 - n° 38 25