Applied Materials has opened its new Singapore Operations Center, Applied's first facility in Asia for manufacturing its advanced semiconductor equipment.

Nanda Technologies has raised US$4 million from Capital-E and KfW working alongside existing shareholders. The company said it will use the money to support pre-production evaluations at semiconductor manufacturers.

Applied Materials has a balance sheet that can support additional acquisitions, some potentially larger than its US$364 million purchase of Semitool last year, CEO Mike Splinter said in an interview ahead of the company's annual meeting with analysts Tuesday.

The largest semiconductor companies will need to shoulder much of the burden for the expensive R&D projects facing the chip industry, including the development of 450mm equipment and the inspection tools needed for EUV masks, said Dan Armbrust, the new CEO at Sematech.

Applied Materials topped the list of semiconductor equipment vendors for the eighteenth consecutive year in 2009, a year in which mere survival was noteworthy amid a painful recession and steep industry downturn, according to VLSI Research.

Applied Materials has ramped up its lobbying effort during the last three months of 2009, spending close to a half-million dollars trying to sway lawmakers on energy policy and other issues.

Applied Materials CFO George Davis recently remarked there is reason to think the second half will see orders from Tier 2 DRAM players, and from some additional segments of the market, in particular NAND flash.

The strong start prompted Applied Materials to brighten its outlook for the fiscal 2010. The company expects its sales to increase by more than 50%, up from its previous forecast of a 30% gain.

Prosecutors have arrested two executives from Applied Materials in Seoul, South Korea on charges of allegedly stealing Samsung process technology details and passing them on to Hynix.

"These comments beg the question how will the equipment market grow 50-plus-percent in 2010 with no new fabs and no new capacity additions, when it dropped nearly 50% in 2009 with no new fabs and no new capacity additions?"

China's Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. (AMEC) also made a payment to Applied Materials of an undisclosed amount, and the parties agreed to collaborate on projects in the future.

450mm production fabs could be pushed out to 2015 or 2016 - or two years later than some had hoped, according to analysts. And EUV may miss the insertion into the 16nm node, thereby pushing the technology out to the 13nm logic node in 2015.

We closed the year as planned with improved sales and strong bookings, as the semiconductor business recovers driven by technology and capacity buys from major Foundry customers and the memory market segments, according to ASML president and CEO Eric Meurice.

STMicroelectronics has joined the new industry/research multi-partner program IMAGINE, led by CEA-Leti, which includes TSMC, for mask-less lithography for IC manufacturing.

The world's largest maker of semiconductor lithography machines, which map out electronic circuits on silicon wafers, was forecast to report a further rise in bookings from the third quarter, driven by consumer spending on end products.

Vacuum technology firm Edwards is to cut 220 jobs in Sussex as it locates all its manufacturing operations overseas. The move marks a shift in strategy for the Crawley-headquartered company that had previously trumpeted its strong UK manufacturing base, which dates back to 1919.

Vendors were hit hard by the downturn. 2010 looks better, but fab tool makers still face a number of challenges.

"We didn't buy immersion from Nikon according the filing. We still buy from ASML...

Having recently completed the acquisition of Singapore's Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, Globalfoundries is expected to launch the new, combined entity this week.

Answer: Yes and no.

Citing the fab tool recovery, Barclays Capital has raised its immersion lithography unit shipment estimate from 95 units to 105 units for 2010.

The Korean government and private sector will jointly inject 58.4 billion won (US$50.5 million) over the next three years into building up the local semiconductor manufacturing equipment sector, according to government officials.

The sector's recovery depends on what happens at the global climate change summit taking place in Copenhagen and incentives for the renewable resource in China, according to Mark Pinto, CTO and general manager of Applied's Energy and Environmental Solutions group.

This project seeks to optimize the patterning process from design to manufacturing, extend characterization tools and methods to develop new correction and compensation techniques for reducing variability. The project will also explore lithography options for manufacturing complex chips at sub-30nm nodes.

The consensus is that availability of defect-free masks and, perhaps more importantly, a lack of funding for an infrastructure that can inspect those masks, is the most critical issue faced today by EUV lithography development. But working groups are making progress defining - and funding - the solution.

Loss-making foundry Tower Semiconductor, which trades as TowerJazz, has announced it plans to transfer "manufacturing know-how and certain equipment" to support an un-named Asian company ramp up production.

Angry workers at Atmel's fab in Rousset, France, have gone on an unlimited strike. The strike aims to protest against Atmel's decision to sell its site in Rousset without guaranteeing its employees.

Applied Materials will acquire Semitool for up to US$364 million, positioning Applied in the growing markets of wafer-level packaging and copper memory interconnects.

Applied Materials has announced it will cut 10% and 12% of its global workforce over the next 18 months, with half of the cuts in the US. Applied saw net income for its fiscal 2009 fourth quarter slip 40% on year.

"The problem for Applied and the problem for semi equipment in general is that it's highly unlikely that we're going back to 2007 capital spending levels..."

Applied Materials has acquired substantially all the assets, including the intellectual property, of Advent Solar for an undisclosed cash amount. Advent Solar is a developer of advanced technology for crystalline silicon (c-Si) PVs.

Renesas Technology has reached a preliminary agreement to transfer its semiconductor manufacturing equipment business to Hitachi High-Technologies.

"Lam Research had strong shipments and revenue performance in the September quarter, allowing the company to return to profitability and generate positive cash flow once again," company president and CEO Steve Newberry said in a statement.

ATMI, which provides specialty materials to semiconductor makers, saw revenues for third-quarter 2009 improve sequentially and beat Wall Street's expectations.

"Demand for our XLR immersion lithography light sources and Installed Base Products rose sharply during the quarter, driven by increased investment from the foundry and memory sectors in support of transitions to the 5x nanometer node and below," said Cymer's CEO Bob Akins. Cymer's net income totaled US$10.79 million in the third quarter, compared to net income of US$5.33 million a year ago.

Tokyo Electron, the world's No.2 supplier of machines used to make microchips after Applied Materials, has said orders were 83 billion yen (US$931.5 million) in July-September, nearly double from the previous quarter's 48.7 billion yen.

This purchase for automated NSX Inspection Systems with Discover yield management software reflects a trend to incorporate real-time process control into advanced back-end fabrication processes, according to Rudolph Technologies.

Hynix, IMEC, Intel, Samsung, Toshiba and possibly TSMC are the initial customers for ASML's "pre-production" extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography tool, according to an analyst.

Canon is reportedly telling customers it will no longer develop future, leading-edge lithography tools, namely 193nm dry and immersion scanners, according to industry sources.

Backend tool giant Kulicke & Soffa Industries has raised its revenue outlook for its fiscal fourth quarter ending October 3.