Save. Share. Connect.

Friday, July 21, 2017

VOLUME - NUMBER

ASM and RIT Strengthen R&D Partnership

By Michael Skinner, Associate Editor
Rochester, NY — Pushing the conventional boundaries of academia, while building on an almost two-decade-long relationship, ASM Assembly Systems has expanded its partnership with Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). The company is supplying equipment and a dedicated engineer to ...

	SEMI: Record Fab Spending for 2017 and 2018


	Milpitas, CA — The latest update to the World Fab Forecast report, published on May 31, 2017 by SEMI, reveals record spending for fab construction and fab equipment. Korea, Taiwan, and China all see large investments, and spending in Europe will also increase significantly. In 2017, over $49 billion will be ...

Quasiparticles Could Lead to Faster Circuits

Ames, IA — Zhe Fei points to the bright and dark vertical lines running across his computer screen. This nano-image, he explains, shows the waves associated with a half-light, half-matter quasiparticle moving inside a semiconductor.

	New Prospects for Universal Memory


	Moscow, Russia — Researchers from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology's (MIPT) Center of Shared Research Facilities have found a way to control oxygen concentration in tantalum oxide films produced by atomic layer deposition. These thin films could be the basis for creating new forms of nonvolatile memory ...

Food Color Material Repurposed as Sensors

By John Toon, Georgia Tech
Atlanta, GA — Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology have found a material that has been used for decades to color food items ranging from corn chips to ice cream could potentially have uses far beyond food dyes. In a study published in March, the researchers described how ...

	Making Batteries from Waste Glass Bottles


	Riverside, CA — Researchers at the University of California, Riverside's Bourns College of Engineering have used waste glass bottles and a low-cost chemical process to create nanosilicon anodes for high-performance lithium ion batteries. The batteries will extend the range of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid ...

	Graphene Used as "Copy Machine" for Semiconductor Wafers


	By Jennifer Chu, MIT News Office Cambridge, MA — In 2016, annual global semiconductor sales reached their highest-ever point, at $339 billion worldwide. That same year, the semiconductor industry spent about $7.2 billion worldwide on wafers that serve as the substrates for microelectronics components, which can be turned into ...

Wacker's Global Growth Prompts Investment in R&D

By Steve Leberstien
Munich, Germany — Wacker Chemical grew its worldwide sales by two percent in 2016, in spite of modest growth in GDP around the world, achieving a record 5.4 billion euro (USD $5.8 billion) in sales, representing a worldwide growth of 2 percent. The company's polysilicon group benefitted ...

	Hearing Voices: Low-Power Speech Recognition


	Cambridge, MA — The butt of jokes as recently as 10 years ago, automatic speech recognition is now on the verge of becoming a chief means of interacting with computing devices.

Silk Sensor Could Speed Development of New Materials

Gaithersburg, MD — Consumers want fuel-efficient vehicles and high-performance sporting goods, municipalities want weather-resistant bridges and manufacturers want more efficient ways to make reliable vehicles and aircraft. What is needed are new lightweight, energy-saving composites that will not ...

	2016 Semiconductor Equipment Sales Over $41 Billion


	Milpitas, CA — SEMI has reported that worldwide sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment totaled $41.24 billion in 2016, representing a year-over-year increase of 13 percent. Total equipment bookings for 2016 were 24 percent higher than 2015.

Energy Storage at the Nanoparticle Scale

Palo Alto, CA — In a lab below the engineering quad of Stanford University, researchers in the Dionne lab camped out with one of the most advanced microscopes in the world to capture an unimaginably small reaction.

Self-Assembling Particles Brighten the Future of LEDs

Princeton, NJ — Just when lighting aficionados were in a dark place, LEDs came to the rescue. Over the past decade, LED technologies have swept the lighting industry by offering features such as durability, efficiency and long life.

	North American PCB Sales Enjoy Solid Growth


	Bannockburn, IL — IPC has released its December 2016 findings from its monthly North American Printed Circuit Board (PCB) Statistical Program. Sales growth in December was solid, while the PCB book-to-bill ratio slipped to 0.98.

Medical Breakthrough: Mind-Controlled Robots

Duluth, MN — Mind control of robots has taken a giant leap forward according to researchers at the University of Minnesota. Scientists there have made a major breakthrough that allows people to control a robotic arm using only their minds. The research has the potential to help millions of people ...

	Unprecedented Alternative To Battery Storage Discovered


	Surrey, UK — Ground-breaking research from the University of Surrey and Augmented Optics Ltd., in collaboration with the University of Bristol, has developed potentially transformational technology that could revolutionize the capabilities of appliances that have previously relied on battery power.

Self-Healing Transistors for Chip-Scale Starships

Daejeon, South Korea — Working with the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), NASA is pioneering the development of tiny spacecraft made from a single silicon chip that could slash interstellar exploration times.

Bumpy Surfaces and Graphene Enhance Heat Sinks

Houston, TX — Bumpy surfaces with graphene between would help dissipate heat in next-generation microelectronic devices, according to Rice University scientists. Their theoretical studies show that enhancing the interface between gallium nitride semiconductors and diamond heat sinks would allow phonons ...

ASM Munich Named "Factory of the Year"

Munich, Germany — ASM Assembly Systems has been named the overall winner in Produktion magazine's annual "Factory of the Year/Global Excellence in Operations" contest. Sponsored by Produktion and by consultancy A.T. Kearney, the respected award recognizes the exceptional flexibility ...

Handling Heat with Shrinking Metamaterials

Cambridge, MA — Almost all solid materials, from rubber and glass to granite and steel, inevitably expand when heated. Only in very rare instances do certain materials buck this thermodynamic trend and shrink with heat. For instance, cold water will contract at temperatures between 0 and 4°C (32 ...