Human intellectual development has eclipsed emotional development, with the resulting problem of clever people lacking morals. In government, industry, and academia there are endless examples of this problem, which is now threatening the economy due to corruption, and the very biosphere of the earth due to pollution. It is heartening that MIT (that trained most […]
Silicon Valley has certainly not been immune to the current economic conditions, with many companies announcing multiple rounds of layoffs and moving operations overseas. Yet for many it is still considered “the heart” of the high-tech industry. At today’s well-attended Silicon Valley Lunch Forum, organized by the Sales and Marketing Council of SEMI, three speakers […]
The Materials Research Society (MRS) Spring Meeting in San Francisco is so huge, this year attracting a record of over 5,000 attendees, that strategy is needed to try to see any representative sample of the event. To provide in-depth information about new materials technologies, new symposia have been added over the years such that there […]
Abound Solar (formerly AVA Solar), a manufacturer of CdTe thin-film photovoltaic (PV) solar panels, announced the opening of its first full-scale production facility in Longmont, Colo. This facility uses a proprietary manufacturing process that is claimed to significantly reduce production costs of solar panels. The fully automated facility will create more than 300 new jobs […]
Intermolecular, the combinatorial R&D company that has been working on semiconductor fab processes, plans to grow solar R&D to possibly be the largest portion of the company’s business. Under the leadership of new vice president and general manager of solar business group Craig Hunter (who joined from Applied Materials), Intermolecular is now working on both […]
The Materials Research Society (MRS) Bulletin for April 2009 covers some of the newest engineering work for the growth of large and pure electronic crystals. In this week before the annual MRS Spring Meeting in San Francisco, this issue of the monthly MRS members magazine provides an excellent overview of the latest technologies used to […]
IMEC has begun expanding its beautiful Leuven, Belgium campus facilities, starting with 2,800 square-meters of research labs and including the extension of its state-of-the-art clean room. With this extension, IMEC will expand its research on 22nm CMOS and beyond, low-cost and high-efficiency solar cells, and biomedical electronics. The Flemish Government invests 35 million euro and […]
The SPIE Europe Microtechnologies For the New Millennium congress has new partners this year, with the involvement of GMM, the Society of Microelectronics, Micro and Precision Engineering and the magazine mst|news as Cooperating Organisations for the first time. The event will be held at the Congress Centre Maritim Hotel in Dresden, Germany, 4-6 May 2009. […]
Semilab, founded in 1990 and headquartered in Budapest, Hungary, is spending cash to continue to expand its portfolio of fab metrology offerings. Today, the company announced it has acquired Advanced Metrology Systems (AMS) and QC Solutions. The two Massachusetts-based metrology companies expand Semilab’s family of scalable, flexible solutions to help semiconductor and solar manufacturers characterize […]
The principles of “causality” and “boundary conditions” are fundamental to modern science, and when you apply these principles to the system of human energy production/consumption it tends to lead to thoughts of TeraWatt Challenges and limiting demand. Raw energy limits need not equate with lifestyle limits, if new technologies allow us to be far more […]