AMD has released the first three models of its next-generation high-performance AMD Ryzen desktop processor. Ryzen is the first processor based on the entirely new AMD Zen core microarchitecture, bringing multi-core performance for PC gamers, creators, and hardware enthusiasts.Three 8-core Ryzen 7 models are available initially. Beginning in the second quarter, AMD expects to launch 6- and 4-core Ryzen 5 processors followed later in 2017 by Ryzen 3, which is designed to bring more performance to mainstream applications. All Ryzen processors support the new AM4 infrastructure, with motherboard designs becoming available from major players.Alongside Ryzen 7 processors, AMD also announced the product specifications for two Ryzen 5 processors, and demonstrated the flagship Ryzen 5 1600X outmatching Intel's flagship Core i5 7600K by more than 60% in multi-threaded CPU testing.In addition to being available to DIY builders and boutique PC vendors, in the coming months, consumers will also be able to purchase Ryzen-based systems from top PC vendors. AMD Ryzen desktop processor lineup: Specifications Product Line Model Cores Threads Base clock Boost clock Cooler TDP On sale Ryzen 7 1800X 8 16 3.6 4.0 N/A 95W Now Ryzen 7 1700X 8 16 3.4 3.8 N/A 95W Now Ryzen 7 1700 8 16 3.0 3.7 Wraith Spire 65W Now Ryzen 5 1600X 6 12 3.6 4.0 Wraith Spire 95W 2Q17 Ryzen 5 1500X 4 8 3.5 3.7 Wraith Spire 65W 2Q17 Source: Company, compiled by Digitimes, March 2017AMD Ryzen CPUPhoto: Monica Chen, Digitimes file photo

Recent product line expansion now makes more than 37,500 Analog Devices products available for shipment from Digi-KeyElectronics, a global electronic components distributor. Digi-Key has increased their ADI stocking portfolio by 20% in the last few months to support engineersworldwide.The newest product additions, including precision signal conditioning solutions, high frequency wideband components, and dataconverters, are easily accessed online at http://www.digikey.com/en/supplier-centers/a/analog-devices?WT.mc_id=PressRelease."As both companies increasingly grow and innovate within our industry,this announcement underscores the strong relationship ADI has with Digi-Key," according to Martin Cotter, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales and Digital Marketing at Analog Devices. "We anticipate continuous collaboration throughout the year as we work closely together on new product introductions, design assistance, and providing the newest innovationsand technologies to engineers in our mutual customer base around the world."Analog Devices designs and manufactures semiconductor products and solutions. They enable customers to interpret the world around us by intelligently bridging the physical and digitalwith unmatched technologies that sense, measure and connect."We are committed to fueling innovation which we do by stockingthe broadest selection of cutting-edge components and technologies. We are ableto accomplish that thanks to the remarkable relationships we have with oursupplier partners," says David Stein, VP, Global Semiconductors at Digi-KeyElectronics.Engineers can peruse hundreds of videoson ADI devices housed on Digi-Key's website.About Digi-KeyElectronicsDigi-KeyElectronics, based in Thief River Falls, Minn., is a global, full-service distributor of both prototype/design and production quantities of electronic components, offering more than five million products from over 650 quality name-brandmanufacturers. With over 1.3 million products in stock and an impressiveselection of online resources, Digi-Key is committed to stocking the broadestrange of electronic components in the industry and providing the best servicepossible to its customers. Additionalinformation and access to Digi-Key's broad product offering is available at http://www.digikey.com/?WT.mc_id=PressRelease.

Leading semiconductor test equipment supplier Advantest Corporation (TSE: 6857) and W2BI, Inc., an Advantest Group company whose test automation products help customers quickly launch new high-quality smart devices, will showcase their newest test and test automation products for the wireless electronics market at the Mobile World Congress (MWC), running February 27 through March 2 at the Fira Gran Via in Barcelona, Spain."Under the banner of long-time MWC exhibitor W2BI, we will display two of our leading-edge products designed to measure the connected world and everything in it," said Judy Davies, vice president of global marketing communications at Advantest. "Our diverse array of technologies is united behind the common goal of helping our customers to reduce their costs of test and get their products to market faster."Product ExhibitsStand #6K37 in Hall 6 will feature exhibits of Advantest's IC measurement platform as well as the latest test automation product from W2BI.Advantest's EVA100 tester is designed for highly efficient evaluation and measurement of analog/mixed-signal ICs. It uses the same test sequences for both design and production measurements, allowing users to establish a standardized measurement environment throughout their operations. By freeing semiconductor manufacturers from the need to invest time and resources in correlating test data from different systems, the EVA100 helps to achieve much shorter time to market for new IC designs.Also at the stand, W2BI will demonstrate its new capability to support testing of LTE-M devices using the portable MicroLTE system, which leverages cloud technology to test smart devices and IoT-based technologies. The system lowers the cost of testing during the development and production life cycles and provides a high level of scalability. The MicroLTE system supports 4G, 3G/2G, Wi-Fi, BT and NFC test features.About W2BIW2BI, Inc. is an Advantest Group company and a global leader in wireless device test automation products. Serving the world's top wireless operators, suppliers and labs, W2BI's software helps customers to significantly improve their device quality and time-to-market. W2BI remains at the forefront of device test applications, addressing the increased complexities brought by the volume of data services and by rapidly developing technology. W2BI added to its portfolio network emulation hardware and software, bringing to the marketplace complete systems for IoT and smart phone testing, encompassing R&D, conformance, production and device returns applications. For more information, visit http://www.w2bi.com/.About Advantest CorporationA world-class technology company, Advantest is the leading producer of automatic test equipment (ATE) for the semiconductor industry and a premier manufacturer of measuring instruments used in the design and production of electronic instruments and systems. Its leading-edge systems and products are integrated into the most advanced semiconductor production lines in the world. The company also focuses on R&D for emerging markets that benefit from advancements in nanotech and terahertz technologies, and has introduced multi-vision metrology scanning electron microscopes essential to photomask manufacturing, as well as groundbreaking 3D imaging and analysis tools. Founded in Tokyo in 1954, Advantest established its first subsidiary in 1982, in the USA, and now has subsidiaries worldwide. More information is available at http://www.advantest.com/.

From the time computers were first developed to the present when IoT is considered the next big thing in the world of technology and Industry 4.0 is driven by the burgeoning IoT devices, computer systems have all been providing users application services including communication, collaboration and data processing through the help of operating systems. For example, mainframes in the 1960s and PCs in the late 1970s both were driven and managed by hardware-based operating systems so that they could perform computation.Through many years of development, operating systems are generally considered to provide two functions: Managing resources required to carry out computation tasks and furnishing an operating environment. That is, they provide a way for human-machine interactions to help users drive and use the resources needed to complete the tasks.Personal operating systems running on hardware devices provide each user a unique account to build his/her own dedicated and private operating system so every user has his/her own private environment which prevents access by other users. As such, interpersonal communication across personal operating systems can only be achieved through application services.In the 1990s, Internet became a popular and highly efficient way for information exchange. Personal computers also started to have browsers to send and receive information to and from the Internet. Today, Internet application services are becoming more and more mature and widespread.However, the current development of collaborative work has run into a wall. There are only 5% of businesses across all industries capable of developing their own application programs or host their own websites. The other 95% of businesses and 99% of the public have to rely on platforms/application programs made available by third party companies for communication and collaboration.New cloud technology leading into the era of cloud operating systemTo resolve the bottleneck that personal operating systems can only rely on application services for collaboration and communication and the security risk that data is kept at third party platforms, Picowork, a cloud system provider based in Taiwan, introduces collaborative cloud computer (CCC) and collaborative cloud operating system (CCOS) solutions, targeting the demand for all-round collaborations among customers, channels, manufacturers and production chains arising from the development of IoT, Industry 4.0 and Big Data. By providing CCC, Picowork enables operating entities in a wide range of businesses to achieve self-managed security and also freely build a collaborative environment to benefit from common collaborative operations under an open and secure framework.What exactly is collaborative cloud computer (CCC) and collaborative cloud operating system (CCOS)? "CCC is built with CCOS. Install CCOS on a hardware host and deploy it or set it up in your network server room or IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service). Then, you can have your own CCC," explained Jun-Hsiao Lin, Vice President & CTO, Picowork.As to CCOS, Picowork builds the solution as a binary computing environment on the Internet. One implementation is to provide a personal operating environment where each user is given a dedicated account for him/her to set up a personal cross-platform operating environment directly on the Internet. This helps the user access a variety of resources on the Internet and the user can only access his/her own account. The other implementation is to provide a collaborative operating environment where each user in his/her own operating environment can set up a collaborative operating environment specifically for a social activity. Different from a personal operating environment, the initiator of a collaborative operating environment can freely decide who can access the collaborative operating environment, e.g. company employees, industry chain business partners, and current or potential customers. These people can participate in common activities, share resources such as collaborative documents, companies' internal information systems, Web application services, etc. to accomplish collaborative work.IoT use scenarios call for readily available cloud collaborative connectionsFrom the above discussion, we can see that CCOS features the ability to work collaboratively in the boundaryless Internet environment. The entire IoT ecosystem basically seeks to gather Big Data through connected devices and send it to cloud for computation for the purpose of forecasting market trend for the next quarter and thereby providing accurate prediction to improve business operation and raise efficiency. The challenge lies in the lack of a common standard. Even if a common standard is established, businesses will have to make changes to their application programs so that they can negotiate business, which requires data exchange. The fact that the businesses have to spend high costs to exchange data hinders widespread IoT development.In response to major business opportunities, organizations are all looking to find solutions with the highest efficiency, lowest costs, and least changes. Picowork's CCOS is the most effective solution. For businesses to take part in collaborative work and share resources, all they need to do is use their own cloud computer to set up a collaborative operating environment running on the Internet and make use of operations therein to send invitations to employees, enterprises, and supply chain partners via communication channels including email, text messages, messaging software and social media. All the people participating in the collaborative work can congregate in the same operating environment in no time.When a brand vendor needs to conduct transactions with supply chain partners or a government agency is inviting bids for a tender project, they can create a variety of collaborative operating environments by themselves based on the purposes of collaborations (much like a workplace operating various social activities). In the collaborative operating environment, people can engage in one-to-one communication, conduct multipoint video conferences, send all types of text/media files and collaborative documents and can also install application programs owned by the participants directly in the collaborative environment. Each type of content can be configured with access rights. Accordingly, a demand-oriented cloud ecosystem is in the formation, enabling lowest costs and least changes.Four requirements of cloud collaboration environment are mutually supportive, not mutually exclusiveThe collaborative operating environment Picowork is attempting to bring to reality already has applications in collaborative sales, collaborative supply, collaborative service, collaborative education, collaborative manufacturing, collaborative control, and collaborative maintenance. Lin pointed out that the key to the implementation of widespread cross-industry collaborative operations is whether the four basic requirements by businesses engaged in collaborations can be fulfilled.Controllable: The first requirement is an organization can have control over its cloud environment. If an organization with a main network structure can deploy its own CCC in its network server room, then it can have its own cloud computer and therefore control over its cloud environment.Freedom: The second requirement is an organization can freely establish a collaborative relationship. That is, for different social activities, an organization can use its cloud computer to create its own cross-platform collaborative operating environments and can freely invite people engaging in the collaboration (e.g. company employees, industry partners and customers) to join the common operating environment and accomplish the collaborative work. The operating environment supports both freedom and control.Extendable: The third requirement is during the course of collaboration, the initiator and participants of the collaborative operating environment can install, introduce or make use of internal and external resources that are compatible with both parties' network systems, including data, content, tools, applications and services, with the lowest costs and least changes.Analyzable: The fourth requirement is an organization can keep track of all the operations and interactions during the course of collaboration, forming the basis for Big Data analytics for future reference and back-end statistics, generating Big Data benefits.Working on building secure collaborative environments, Picowork establishes a complete patent portfolioTo meet the four requirements, Picowork has spent nearly six years on the R&D and testing of CCOS and CCC. In addition, Picowork began patent planning early in the development stage of its technologies. In the six years, it has filed applications for dozens of invention patents which have already obtained international priority based on PCT patent search results. Sixty percent of the applications have all Category A references cited in the search reports, indicated Lin at Picowork's CCOS and CCC product launch. Applications pertaining to its core technologies have been granted by the patent offices of many different countries, including the US, and Picowork continues with its patent prosecution for other major countries in the world.Four aspects within the scope of Picowork's granted patents are chosen to enable further understanding on its future development goals:1. Global Internet resources can be managed through a system.2. An operating system environment can drive and make use of global Internet resources to accomplish tasks.3. An operating system environment can be cloud-based and run on the Internet.4. An operating system environment running on the Internet can connect people, tasks, things and information systems for collaborative applications (including the collection of Big Data).These four aspects of Picowork's granted patents are indications of its tremendous development potential in the cloud ecosystem industry.In the past, information security mechanisms focused on data encryption because data is transmitted by third party application programs on PC and encryption is needed to protect data from being compromised. In the case of a cloud collaborative operating environment, Picowork uses a Secured Container to execute the operating environment and install application services and content in the cloud operating environment. Therefore, if application programs carry viruses, the viruses will be contained in the Secured Container and will not infect the cloud collaborative operating environment.Lin concluded that Taiwan has a complete hardware industry chain and a growing number of software R&D talent. However, the industry still lacks its own operating environment and therefore has no opportunity to define its own rules. This is why Picowork, seeing that future developments of IoT and Industry 4.0 will require widespread social collaborations, sets eyes on building collaborative operating environments with cross-platform cloud integration connecting different people and things. This will also be an ideal path leading the Taiwan industry to go forward.Picowork CCC

United Microelectronics Corporation (NYSE:UMC;TWSE: 2303) ("UMC"), a leading global semiconductor foundry, today announced that it has entered mass production for customer ICs based on the company's self-developed 14nm FinFET technology. The foundry is shipping 14nm wafers to its lead customers and has achieved industry-competitive yields for the highly advanced process, which is being utilized for pioneering new consumer electronic applications.Po-Wen Yen, CEO of UMC said, "This 14nm volume production milestone is the culmination of UMC's close collaboration with its customers, demonstrating the success of our collaborative approach to bringing leading-edge technologies to market. We will continue to refine this process and are working with other customers to bring the full performance, power and gate density benefits of 14nm FinFET to enable next generation silicon in areas such as networking, AI and various consumer products."UMC's 14nm FinFET technology performance is competitive with the semiconductor industry's leading standards, featuring 55% higher speed and twice the gate density over 28nm process technology. The leading-edge 14nm process also consumes approximately 50% less power than 28nm. UMC is producing the 14nm customer ICs at the company's Fab 12A in Tainan, Taiwan and expects to steadily ramp its 14nm manufacturing capacity according to customer demand.About UMCUMC (NYSE: UMC, TWSE: 2303) is a leading global semiconductor foundry that provides advanced IC production for applications spanning every major sector of the electronics industry. UMC's robust foundry solutions enable chip designers to leverage the company's sophisticated technology and manufacturing, which include high volume production 28nm gate-last High-K/Metal Gate technology, ultra-low power platform processes specifically engineered for Internet of Things (IoT) applications and the automotive industry's highest-rated AEC-Q100 Grade-0 manufacturing capabilities for production of ICs found in cars. UMC's 11 wafer fabs are strategically located throughout Asia and are able to produce over 500,000 wafers per month. The company employs nearly 19,000 people worldwide, with offices in Taiwan, China, Europe, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and the United States. UMC can be found on the web at http://www.umc.com/.Note from UMC Concerning Forward-Looking StatementsSome of the statements in the foregoing announcement are forward looking within the meaning of the U.S. Federal Securities laws, including statements about future outsourcing, wafer capacity, technologies, business relationships and market conditions. Investors are cautioned that actual events and results could differ materially from these statements as a result of a variety of factors, including conditions in the overall semiconductor market and economy; acceptance and demand for products from UMC; and technological and development risks. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in UMC's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including its registration statements and reports on Forms F-1, F-3, F-6 and 20-F and 6-K, in each case as amended. UMC does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under applicable law.

Clientron Corp., a global leading provider of POS, Thin Client, and Embedded Systems will display its latest POS solution to the retail market at the world's leading retail show, EuroShop 2017, on the 5th to 9th March 2017 in Dusseldorf, Germany. During this trade show, Clientron will introduce all its new POS terminals and various built-in POS peripherals that are featured with the benefits of Green, Reliability, and Efficiency in order to meet the demands of Retail 4.0 for the Smart Hospitality Industry.At Hall 6, Booth H10, the Clientron Showcase strives to bring visitors into a scenario of being in a Coffee shop and a Retail store. Innovative POS terminal demonstrations will include Clientron Bello series with 12.1" / 15" / 15.6" Touch Display in a solid Aluminum Enclosure; Bello just won the "Taiwan Excellence Award 2017" this year for its innovation and the best quality design, which makes it stand out from numerous products as the best choice for POS applications.And, Clientron will introduce the Butterfly Light-weight POS terminal, the Wing series, with a flexible Dual-hinge Stand design. Besides that, the mainstream Ares650 series is with an Up-to-date Ultra-slim System Enclosure; both Wing and Ares also won the "Taiwan Excellence Award 2016" last year.Furthermore, Clientron will have the most affordable POS terminal – the PT3200, equipped with an Intel power efficient Quad-core processor, offered in a fanless system with long life span support to both entry and mainstream POS market segments. For more information on Clientron or its products, please visit us at Hall 6 Booth H10, EuroShop 2017, or browse Clientron website at http://www.clientron.com/.About ClientronClientron was founded in 1983. The company is dedicated in providing global intelligent solutions to our clients. With design, manufacturing, and service abilities, Clientron offers High-quality and High-performance computing platforms including Thin Client, POS and Intelligent System. We are steadfast in our commitment to develop and to provide even more advanced IoT client solution and services for our partners and customers to build an intelligent e-World. Visit us at http://www.clientron.com/Clientron to showcase its new POS terminals at EuroShop 2107

Entegris, Inc. (NASDAQ: ENTG), a leader in specialty chemicals and advanced materials handling solutions for the microelectronics industry, announced today it has introduced a new platform for advanced gas purification that improves wafer yields for semiconductor and LED applications. The new family of GateKeeper Gas Purification Systems (GPS) applies new purification media to provide best-in-class gas purity at a wide range of flow rates with a reduced equipment footprint. With expanded capacity in South Korea, Entegris now manufactures GateKeeper GPS systems in both North America and Asia."Our customers face unprecedented contamination control challenges to efficiently manufacture today's increasingly complex leading-edge-devices. The new Gatekeeper GPS family of systems provide the advanced solutions required to maximize yield in these environments," said Entegris Senior Vice President of Microcontamination Control, Clint Haris. "In conjunction with these new technology introductions, we continue our investments in our North America and Asia facilities to expand our global service and manufacturing capabilities."Semiconductor processes for advanced nodes, as well as LED manufacturing requirements, call for increased purity to remove defect-causing contaminants found in process gases. The GateKeeper GPS family of systems removes a variety of contaminants from gas streams down to the part-per-trillion levels and can be configured to a wide range of flow rates. Gases purified include CDA, N2, H2, H2 for EUV, Ar, NH3. Additionally, manufacturers are looking for tools that require significantly less sub-fab floor space. The reduced footprint allows customers to devote valuable sub-fab floor space to other tool needs or increase purification capacity with additional systems."We collaborated closely with our customers to identify purity requirements to meet their needs to remove new contaminants and increased sensitivity to known contaminants," said Director of Gas Purification Product Management, Jordan Ruple. "As a result, we are proud to be the first to offer this level of purity – in a variety of gases and flow rates – for systems of this size."About EntegrisEntegris is a leader in specialty chemicals and advanced materials solutions for microelectronics industry and other high-tech industries. Entegris is ISO-9001 certified and has manufacturing, customer service and/or research facilities in the United States, China, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. Additional information may be found at http://www.entegris.com/.

Spirox (TWSE:3055), the sole and exclusive distributor of Xcerra Corporation (NASDAQ: XCRA) in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, recently received an email message from Xcerra advising that Xcerra intends to limit the exclusive distribution territory ("Territory") to only Taiwan. Given that both parties' original intentions for cooperation has changed and the mode of business recognized by both parties has differed, to maintain the interests of the company, our shareholders and employees, Spirox has resolved to terminate the distributor agreement with Xcerra. Pursuant to the distributor agreement, the party intending to terminate the agreement has to give the other party at least 365 days prior written notice (such period the "Notice Period"). During such Notice Period, Spirox will continue to discuss its future cooperation relationship with Xcerra and will also develop other product lines, new businesses and other cooperation modes and plans seeking to maximize the interests of investors in and employees of Spirox.According to the distributor agreement with Xcerra, during the Notice Period, both parties will continue to act in good faith in performing all of their obligations under such agreement, and Xcerra shall not make any changes to the exclusive territory without Spirox's consent. Spirox will assert our relevant rights with Xcerra pursuant to the foregoing. At the same time, Spirox will continue discussions with Xcerra and does not rule out other modes of possible cooperation going forward to ensure that the interests of our customers and shareholders are not affected.For the last 30 years, Spirox has significantly contributed to the Greater China semiconductor test market. Our comprehensive and professional team providing satisfactory services is close to and trusted by customers. The core capabilities developed over the many years are our foundations to continue to support future customer services. Meanwhile, Spirox is financially sound and will continue to seek new customers and new products and to adjust our operational structure. Spirox believes this turning point will be a good start for us to welcome the new market and embrace the future development.About SpiroxSpirox was established in 1987 with its headquarter in Hsinchu, Taiwan. Spirox delivers integrated and best-practice solutions to our customers in the major industries of Semiconductor, Flat Panel Display, Micro electromechanical Systems and other high-tech products. Spirox provides leading edge solutions and products from IC Design Characterization Products & Services, Semiconductor Test & Assembly Solutions, and Test & Measurement Instrumentation products. Global offices of Spirox are located in Taiwan, USA, China and Hong Kong. Spirox website: http://www.spirox.com/

Litemax Electronic Inc. (stock code: 4995), the world-leading high brightness LCD panel and industrial computer manufacturer, 7 products (100% hit rate) had been awarded in the 25th Taiwan Excellence Award among 518 competitors with 1,188 products.David King, President of Litemax Electronic Inc., mentioned that intelligent system enhancement is the field that Litemax has been focusing on in recent years as well. To integrate application and aesthetics into the intelligent system, Litemax not only officially completed an M & A with the renowned industrial application provider WynMax in 2016, it has also been dedicated to developing solutions related to intelligent transportation, healthcare care and automation engineering management. The award recipients this time are the best embodiment and recognition of this concept.Litemax presented the world's first high resolution 4K2K resizing, square-shaped LCD display SSD4215, Litemax smart shelf display system SSD2755 also attracted the interest of buyers. SSD2755 is expected to combine big data systems with the store as well as collect details about consumer demand to provide more information to the merchant and create an unprecedented consuming experience. As for industrial computer, IBOX-GPFL-BYT2, Litemax Palm Size wide temperature RuggCore, and IPPC-MR18-IVB1, the model featuring a wide 18.5" LCD and IP68 fully waterproof, also drew attention of marine and industrial automation buyers from many countries. Ever since its launch, the high performance of the modular industrial panel PC has pulled plenty of sample requests and we expect to win more collaboration opportunities in the future.Litemax has been continuously awarded and the number of our award recipients are increasing each year. We'll keep devoting ourselves to enhancing the development of original and innovative intelligence systems.LITEMAX ELECTRONICS INC.http://www.litemax.com/Litemax won 7 awards for Taiwan Excellence Award

Leading semiconductor test equipment supplier Advantest Corporation (TSE: 6857) will exhibit a wide array of test solutions at this year's SEMICON Korea trade show, coming February 8-10 to the COEX in Seoul, South Korea. Advantest is also a platinum sponsor of the Presidents Reception, which takes place the evening of February 8.In booth #1612 in Hall C, Advantest will showcase both its newest test solutions and its proven products for the Korean market. Featured products and services will include industry-leading test and measurement platforms, performance-enhancing modules and channel cards, e-beam lithography and metrology-SEM systems, performance boards, burn-in test boards, and probe cards.Technical insight will be provided through demonstrations as well as digital graphics and in-depth presentations, allowing visitors to learn all about the latest IC test innovations offered by Advantest.On Thursday, February 9, at 2:00 p.m., Jeongseob Kim, director of Advantest Korea's SoC department, will present a paper on "The Challenges of Testing IoT Modules on ATE Systems" during the half-day Test Forum in Room 318, Conference Room (South), COEX.Connect on Social MediaFor the latest information on test solutions from the industry leader, follow Advantest on Twitter @Advantest_ATE.About Advantest CorporationA world-class technology company, Advantest is the leading producer of automatic test equipment (ATE) for the semiconductor industry and a premier manufacturer of measuring instruments used in the design and production of electronic instruments and systems. Its leading-edge systems and products are integrated into the most advanced semiconductor production lines in the world. The company also focuses on R&D for emerging markets that benefit from advancements in nanotech and terahertz technologies, and has introduced multi-vision metrology scanning electron microscopes essential to photomask manufacturing, as well as groundbreaking 3D imaging and analysis tools. Founded in Tokyo in 1954, Advantest established its first subsidiary in 1982 in the USA and now has subsidiaries worldwide. More information is available at http://www.advantest.com/.