Microtechnology News articles from January 1999

Microtechnology News archives from January 1999

DEVELOPMENTS: Pragmatic to Distribute Sandia's Software.
January 1, 1999... Pragmatic Instruments (San Diego, CA) signed a license agreement with Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Under the agreement, Pragmatic will distribute Sandia's Super microdriver waveform creation software which is used in...

Tiny Resonators Have High "Q" Factor.
January 1, 1999... Superconductor Technologies Inc. (STI, Santa Barbara, CA) says its labs have demonstrated a thumbnail-size resonator with a Quality Factor ("Q" Factor) of 400,000, which is 10 times higher than any current commercial high temperature...

Better Reliability for System-on-a-Chip.
January 1, 1999... Bell Labs researchers have developed a method to enhance the efficiency and reliability of system-on-a-chip products. They have replaced a uniform gate oxide thickness, which limits the chip's performance, with a gate oxide whose thickness...

Bell Labs Finds Smallest Active Region.
January 1, 1999... Bell Labs researchers have developed the world's smallest active region of a transistor, known as the effective channel length. Measured at 20 nm wide (roughly 60 atoms) it is part of the "p" class of metal oxide semiconductor (MOS)...

Carbon Nanotubes May Make Displays.
January 1, 1999... Carbon nanotubes (tubular versions of the C60 molecule) have the possibility to make top notch emitters for field emission displays. A particular problem, however, is the fact that they emit electrons from the tip of each tube, not from the...

APPLICATIONS: Vehicle Security Uses Micromachined Sensor.
January 1, 1999... Analog Devices (ADI, Norwood, MA) says it will supply its new ADXL202 iMEMS motion sensor to E.R.M. Electronic Systems Ltd., Israel, a growing manufacturer of vehicle security systems. Utilizing the advanced tilt sensing capabilities of this...

Sensor for Seismic Switch.
January 1, 1999... Analog Devices also announced that it will supply its new micromachined accelerometer to Kinemetrics (Pasadena, CA; Website: www.kinemetrics.com), a leading supplier of seismic instrumentation. Utilizing Analog Device's new ADXL202 iMEMS motion...

Thin Film Pressure Sensors.
January 1, 1999... A family of low cost, ultra-sensitive silicon micromachined pressure sensors has been introduced by Integrated Micromachines Inc. (IMMI, Burbank, CA; Tel: 818/565-5666). The device is now in production and is based on IMMI's patent pending Thin...

MEMS Device Increases Network Capacity.
January 1, 1999... CoreTek Inc. (Burlington, MA) has a technology tradenamed MEM-SEL which can help satisfy the 36% growth in demand per year for telecommunications bandwidth. The company's unique combination of vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL)...

Tunable Microantenna Detects Man-Made Objects.
January 1, 1999... The Center for Research and Education in Optics and Lasers (CREOL) at the University of Central Florida (Orlando) has developed a tunable polarization microantenna. Its technology, when coupled with an uncooled bolometer, can make measurements...

FABRICATION: Irvine Sensors Develops Neo-stack Packaging.
January 1, 1999... Irvine Sensors Corp. announced the receipt of contract add-ons, totaling about $1 million from the Boeing Co., for the Advanced Humionics Platform (AHP) subcontract announced March, 1998. The AHP program is funded by the DARPA (Arlington, VA)...

Microscopic Batteries Assist MEMS Devices.
January 1, 1999... Bipolar Technologies and Brigham Young University (both of Provo, UT) have found a way to develop a family of microscopic batteries that can be used in MEMS and other types of circuits. Funded through a Ballistic Missile Defense Organization...

ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES Eaton Uses Advanced Lithography.
January 1, 1999... Eaton's Fusion Systems Division (Rockville, MD) says that it has achieved notable success in I300I using photostabilization in advanced lithography process development. In continued support of semiconductor device manufacturing, Eaton sent its...

Lam and National Plan Aluminum Etch.
January 1, 1999... Lam Research Corp. (Fremont, CA) announced a joint development program (JDP) with National Semiconductor Corp. (Santa Clara, CA) to develop advanced aluminum plasma etch processes. They will be developed on Lam's TCP 9600PTX metal etch cluster...

Japanese Looking at EUV Lithography.
January 1, 1999... Japan's government-funded Advanced Semiconductor Equipment Technology (ASET) has started a program that will bring together a group of about 30 researchers to concentrate on Extreme Ultra Violet (EUV) lithography. Nikon will be the major...

MCNC to Make SCALPEL Blanks.
January 1, 1999... Lucent Technologies (Murray Hill, NJ) signed an agreement with MCNC's MEMS Technology Application Center (Research Triangle Park, NC) to supply commercial quality mask blanks for Lucent's Scattering with Angular Limitation Projection Electron...

MATERIALS: Diamond Coating in Singapore.
January 1, 1999... Advanced Refractory Technologies (ART, Buffalo, NY) has reached an agreement with CoolMar Ta Marketing PTE Ltd. of Singapore. ART will provide a license for the use of Crystallume's CVD Diamond coating, a multi-patented advanced coating...

Increased AlN Capacity Helps Meet Demand.
January 1, 1999... ART also completed capacity expansions of aluminum nitride powder (AlN) which will allow the company to meet the rapidly increasing demands of the electronic, semiconductor, refractory, and plastic markets. The capacity increases are...

NEW PRODUCTS: High Temperature Fiber Optic Sensor Prototyped.
January 1, 1999... An all silicon, optically integrated temperature sensor that shows the potential for operation at up to 450C has been prototyped by the Honeywell Technology Center. This sensor is suitable for harsh, thermal, EMI, and chemical environments. It...

TEST AND MEASUREMENT HPS Expands ISO-KF Line.
January 1, 1999... The Vacuum Products Group of MKS Instruments (Boulder, CO) recently expanded the HPS Series 31 line of ISO-KF components. Drawings for these components are available on the MKS website at www.mksinst.com/hvcv.html for download. The full...

Deep UV Microscope.
January 1, 1999... Nikon's Microelectronics Systems Department (Melville, NY) introduced the LU2000-DUV inspection system at the SEMICON Japan exposition. This new device allows fab operators to observe and analyze lines and spaces with widths down to 0.1 m. The...

INDUSTRY NEWS: SMSC Ships First PC Chipsets.
January 1, 1999... Standard Microsystems Corp. (SMSC, Hauppauge, NY) says that it began shipments of its first PC systems logic (core logic) chipsets. Each chipset consist of two devices, a NorthBridge integrated circuit (IC) and a SouthBridge IC. These devices,...

OSI Systems Acquires Silicon Microstructures.
January 1, 1999... By acquiring Silicon Microstructures, Inc. (SMI) from Exar Corp., OSI Systems has added to its pressure-sensor capabilities. As a wholly owned subsidiary of OSI, the organization will retain its current president, Jim Knutti. The...

HMCNC Spins Off MEMS Group.
January 1, 1999... The Microelectronics Center of North Carolina (MCNC) has released its first commercial MEMS product, a microrelay that the nonprofit organization hopes to sell to telecommunications, testing, and automotive companies. As a result, the MCNC...

Plasma Systems for MEMS at NJIT.
January 1, 1999... Plasma-Therm Inc. (St. Petersburg, FL) announced the sale of multiple plasma processing systems to the New Jersey Institute of Technology. The purchase includes Plasma-Therm's Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) process technology for deep silicon...

More Orders from GaAs Device Maker.
January 1, 1999... Plasma-Therm says it has received repeat orders from RF Micro Devices, a leading manufacturer of Galium Arsenide (GaAs) HBT power amplifiers. The transaction includes follow-on orders for key GaAs etching and deposition process equipment on the...

Selling Accelerometers Via the Internet.
January 1, 1999... Analog Devices (ADI, Norwood, MA) says they have chosen Crossbow Technology Inc. (San Jose, CA) to distribute their latest iMEMS (integrated micro electro mechanical systems) accelerometer products using Crossbow's Internet ordering system....

FEI and Micrion Agree to Merger.
January 1, 1999... FEI Co. (Hillsboro, OR) and Micrion Corp. (Peabody, MA) jointly announced the signing of an Agreement and Plan of Merger under which Micrion will merge with a subsidiary of FEI. In the merger, Micrion shareholders will receive one share of FEI...

Tanner EDA Adds VARs.
January 1, 1999... Tanner EDA (Pasadena, CA) a leading supplier of desktop integrated circuit (IC) design tools, announced the addition of value-added resellers (VARs) to supplement its direct sales force. Founded in 1988, Tanner EDA develops IC, MEMS, and...

Orchid Biocomputer Acquires Molecular Tool.
January 1, 1999... Orchid Biocomputer Inc. (Princeton, NJ) a spin-off of the Sarnoff Corp., has acquired Molecular Tool (Baltimore, MD), an R&D subsidiary of GeneScreen Inc. Orchid commercializes microfabricated systems for chemistry and the biosciences,...

CALENDAR.
January 1, 1999... January 17-21, 1999, MEMS '99. IEEE, Buena Vista Palace Resort, Orlando, FL. Contact: Tel: 619/298-3559; Website: www.eecs.umich.edu/mems. February 22-23, 1999, Commercialization and Large-Scale Production of Carbon Nanotubes, Washington,...