"The SiT8503 leverages its silicon MEMS technology and programmable architecture to offer many unique features that are not available from quartz, such as frequency and voltage configurability, small size, low power and extreme ruggedness," said Piyush Sevalia, VP of marketing at SiTime.

An IC foundry has made it into the ranks of the Top 20 MEMS foundries for the first time, as TSMC's roughly US$10 million in MEMS foundry revenues put it into 14th place on Yole Developpement's 2009 listing.

SVTC and TSMC will work with developers to bring to market new applications in emerging technologies such as micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), biochips and other devices incorporating new materials and novel structures.

IMEC's revenues will be down only about 5% this year, compared to drops of 20% generally among electronics vendors. "R&D is the last part to cut because they need to continue to innovate," said company CEO Van den hove.

A new Microelectronics Innovation Center is being formed at the Université de Sherbrooke in Bromont, Québec, to focus on 200mm MEMS and 3D wafer-level packaging, and advanced technologies associated with the assembly and packaging of silicon chips.

Hitachi researchers have developed a method to form cavities in the interconnect layers of CMOS ICs, allowing MEMS sensors to be created in the wiring layers.

MEMS packaging may take an evolutionary leap forward into wafer-level packaging, driven by large IDMs and foundries, analysts said. "TSMC (Hsinchu, Taiwan) and others are talking about making MEMS parts...and they have the resources to do the package too.

ALLVIA, the first through-silicon via (TSV) foundry, has secured US$5 million from private investors in its next round of funding to expand manufacturing facilities and to build more capacity. This brings the total funding invested in the company to US$25 million.

Analog Devices Inc. (ADI) cut its fiscal first-quarter guidance because of weak demand from consumers and customers' cuts in their inventories.

According to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Microchip disclosed that it owns a 5.4% stake in Supertex, a publicly-held mixed signal semiconductor manufacturer. Over the last 90 days, ''Microchip has purchased 594,300 shares in the open market and the remaining 103,100 shares were acquired through the exercise of put options sold by Microchip.

South Korea has begun full-scale commercial production of micro-electronic mechanical system (MEMS) sensors that can greatly bolster competitiveness in its information technology industry, the government said Tuesday.

FormFactor has announced that it expects revenues and earnings per share for fiscal fourth quarter 2008 to be below the financial guidance previously provided on October 28, 2008. The company now expects revenues to be between US$37 to US$41 million, lower than the previous expectation of US$48 to US$55 million, and earnings per share, operating expenses and gross margins to be below the guidance previously communicated.

Smart dust is based on microelectromechanical systems, or MEMs. These tiny computer chips can measure temperatures, vibrations or surface pressures. Smart sensors relay signals back to a command computer, which then compiles the data to give feedback to plant managers. Or the results could trigger an automatic response, such as turning down a building's temperature or reducing the flow of oil.

Siimpel announced today that it has completed an investment round in support of its groundbreaking MEMS technology and product development for mobile camera applications. DoCoMo Capital, the corporate venture arm of NTT DoCoMo, has joined Siimpel's existing strategic investors from the mobile market.

In 2009, the MEMS market could face negative growth for the first time," said analyst Marlene Bourne of Bourne Research. "There will likely be at least 18 months of slow consumer growth. The killer app during the slowdown over the next 18 to 24 months will be specific to individual companies–those that succeed will be the ones that identify a significant need and provide a solution.

Continuing on its acquisition spree, KLA-Tencor has entered into an agreement to acquire the inspection business unit of Vistec Semiconductor Systems. Meanwhile, the acquisition expands KLA-Tencor's product portfolio. Vistec's advanced mask metrology tools for registration metrology are among the leading products in this area. Other Vistec products include macro defect-inspection systems, overlay-measurement systems for MEMS applications, and software packages for defect classification and data analysis.