CMP applications experts gathered in Santa Clara, California on February 10th to share their experience and expertise at the fifth annual seminar sponsored by Levitronix. Leading developers, manufacturers, and end-users of CMP discussed all aspects of the technology, and since Levitronix makes magnetic levitation (MagLev) pumps there were many thorough presentations on slurry distribution issues. […]
The SEMI PV Group today announced the release of its Global Photovoltaic (PV) Standards Roadmap Guidance Document, which identifies immediate opportunities for reducing cost and accelerating innovation in thin-film and crystalline silicon cell and module manufacturing through industry standards. This new roadmap confirms that major manufacturing cost savings are possible through standardizing wafer carriers and […]
After the 1st “act” of the story of Intel as a memory chip company founded in 1969, the 2nd act really started in 1985 with the decision to bet the company on the 80386 microprocessor according to Richard S. Tedlow, Harvard Business School professor and residential scholar of the Computer History Museum, in a lecture […]
As SEMI’s SMC today, Raymond Roberge, SVP and CTO of Praxair Electronics, proposed a pragmatic new collaboration model for electronic materials R&D. Semiconductor fab process materials TAM for 2008 was ~$10B, yet materials suppliers now question their ongoing profitability. “Certainly the 300mm shift has resulted in productivity advances for IDMs at the expense of materials […]
At SEMI’s Industry Strategy Symposium (ISS) running at Half Moon Bay, California today, IMEC president and CEO Gilbert Declerck talked about the need for R&D to facilitate IC industry growth. An industry based on answering the question, “what have you done for me lately?” can never rest on past successes and must continue to innovate. […]
Rudolph Technologies today announces Discover Solar™—the first fab management software tool designed specifically to help photovoltaic (PV) manufacturers increase cell efficiency and reduce costs. Discover Solar accepts all available data from each step in the solar manufacturing process, and then applies statistical process control (SPC) algorithms to generate automated reports. A company spokesperson confirmed that […]
This is the first example of a posting to BetaSights new BetaBlog. New posts will appear most working days, so bookmark this site and check back regularly. BetaSights was founded in the fall of 2008 by industry veterans Ed Korczynski and Elizabeth Schumann, to provide commercial free, member supported, productive info about fab beta sites. […]