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April 11, 2006...Power electronics company, Fairchild Semiconductor of South Portland, Maine
USA, has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Power Integrations, Inc.
in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. The suit alleges
infringement of patent no. 5,264,719
by Power Integrations' pulse width modulation (PWM) products. Fairchild says
it intends to stop Power Electronics from making, selling, or importing infringing
products into the US. Additionally the company is seeking monetary damages for
the alleged infringement. Fairchild indicated that while the two companies have
been in litigation since 2004 in the state of Deleware, the new lawsuit is a
separate action filed in the Eastern District of Texas. Tom Beaver, Fairchild's
executive vice president for worldwide sales and marketing, said, “…Fairchild
is asserting a patent that pre-dates Power Integrations' patents by at least
fifteen months.” Fairchild
News Release
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Integrated Materials Seeks Asian Site for Manufacturing and Support Center CompoundSemi News StaffApril 11, 2006...Integrated Materials says it is looking for a site for its Asian manufacturing
and support center. Regions under consideration include: Taiwan, Korea, Japan
and Singapore. The company plans to offer its semiconductor fabrication customers
expanded technical and sales support in addition to increased capacity for SiFusion
Furnaceware. The company’s SiFusion Furnaceware for poly silicon boasts
the ability to reduce trace metal contamination in LPCVD. Company
News Release Aixtron Sells MOCVD System for GaAs Solar Cell R&DApril 11, 2006...Aixtron of Aachen, Germany, reports receiving an order for its MOCVD machine
from the Saturn Joint Stock Company (Saturn JSC) based in Krasnodar, Russia.
The device will reportedly be used for the mass production of gallium arsenide
(GaAs) epitaxial materials for solar cell device structures. Aixtron said that
while it has sold many MOCVD systems to companies in the Russia, the recent
sale to Saturn JSC was the first sold to a Russian company to be used in the
production of solar cells. Saturn JSC, which specializes in solar and storage
batteries for spacecraft, said it will use the AIX 2600G3 for research and development
of solar cells for use in satellites. Aixtron News Release CS and LED Developers Among ACE Award Winners CompoundSemi News StaffApril 10, 2006...EETimes
gave out their Annual Creativity in Electronics (ACE)Awards at a dinner ceremony at
the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, California USA. Leo Mathew, the principal solid
state engineer at Freescale Semiconductor, won the Innovator of the Year, for
the invention of the inverted T-channel field-effect transistor (ITFET), which
reportedly combines horizontal and vertical structures into a single transistor.
According to EETimes, “The technology promises to extend progressive
CMOS scaling to the 45-nanometer and finer process nodes.” The award for
interconnect, passives and electromechanical products went to Avago Technologies
and Lumileds Lighting for their Envisium Power PLCC-4 surface-mount LEDs . The
Envisium Power PLCC4 was initially introduced
before the semiconductor products group of Agilent Technologies became
Avago. (Ref: Coverage).
EETImes says that the Ultimate Product finalists were chosen by editors
to be the most significant products introduced over the past 12 months. Winners
were determined by a vote of EE Times and eeProductCenter readers. TDK Ships 25GB Blu-ray Discs CompoundSemi News StaffApril 10, 2006...TDK of Tokyo, Japan has begun shipping its 25 GB recordable and rewritable Blu-ray Discs. According
to the company, the one-sided recordable media with about three times the capacity
of conventional DVD’s is now being sent to retailers throughout the United
States. TDK, a dominant company in digital recording solutions, says it is first
to the market with bare Blu-ray Disc media. The company has set retail prices
at $19.99 for a 25GB BD-R (recordable), $24.99 for a 25GB BD-RE (rewritable).
TDK will reportedly also ship the 50GB Blu-ray Disc media later this year with
retail pricing set at $47.99 for a 50GB BD-R (recordable) and $59.99 for a 50GB
BD-RE (rewritable). While the 25 GB versions have a single layer, the 50 GB
versions expected out later this year have a dual layer recording structure. After
sending out mass production samples of the 25 GB media in December, the company
issued the relevant license, and began mass production. TDK is offering a 50
spindle package of the recordable media for bulk configurations.
One of the technologies that the company says makes the media much more durable
than other DVD’s is its hard coating called Durabis which the company
claims increases scratch resistance by a factor of 100. In addition the coating
reportedly resists fingerprints. TDK says the coating eliminates the need for
the protective cartridge that was introduced with earlier prototypes of the
Blu-ray discs. Along with the other benefitial properties TDK claimed for the
technology, the Durabis coating rapidly discharges electricity, and resists
the accumulation of dust.The media offers a 2X (72MBps) recording speed. The company has already created a quad layer 100GB
prototype, and the company is working on producing the first 200GB prototype. TDK
News Release Gallium Arsenide Market Still Expected to Break $3 Billion in 2006 CompoundSemi News StaffApril 6, 2006...Compound Semiconductor market analysis company, Strategy Analytics of Boston, Massachusetts USA, has reiterated
their prediction that the gallium arsenide (GaAs) market will break the $3 billion
per year barrier in 2006. The company indicated that the market is in line with
their previously released, long-term forecast report for the gallium arsenide market, which predicts
a healthy 36% increase in total sales revenue for the industry from 2005 to
2010. The company sited the growth of the demand for multi-mode and multi-band
cellular handsets for much of the increase. According to the report and their
latest assertions this growth will help to offset the alternative service provider
(ASP) erosion.
"It's not just a case of increasing handset shipments which helps
to increase GaAs device demand from the handset market over the next five years,"
observed Asif Anwar, Director of the Strategy Analytics GaAs and Compound Semiconductor
Technologies service. "2006 and beyond will see the market shift towards
EDGE/GPRS-based and WCDMA/EDGE multi-mode, multi-band architectures. This will
actually increase the number of HBT and pHEMT die going into increasingly complex
RF front-end module solutions." Company
News Release Mimix Broadband Goes Fabless CompoundSemi News StaffApril 5, 2006...Mimix Broadband reports going 100% fabless. Mimix Broadband Inc. of Houston,
Texas USA, a developer and supplier of microwave and millimeterwave gallium
arsenide semiconductors has now reached a definitive agreement to sell its Santa
Clara, California GaAs foundry facility to local tech company, Universal Semiconductor
Technology Inc (USTI). Mimix has entered into a multi-year wafer supply and
non-compete agreement with USTI which in effect guarantees that its customers
have a continuous supply. Mimix purchased the Santa Clara foundry along with
virtually all of the assets of Celeritek Inc. in June 2005. USTI will provide Mimix foundry services for GaAs
MESFET, pHEMT, and HBT in addition to thin film silicon and ceramic circuit
components and substrates. Also under the agreement, USTI agrees not to manufacture
or sell products that compete with Mimix products. “This agreement
is ideal, since it allows Mimix to be 100% fabless, while continuing to provide
our customers with a continuous supply of the unique device intellectual property
developed at Celeritek and now owned by Mimix,” stated Rick Montgomery,
CEO, Mimix Broadband, Inc.
Mr. Bao Hua Zheng, Chairman of Universal Semiconductor Technology, Inc. commented,
“USTI will have the opportunity to manufacture GaAs semiconductors,
using proven and industry-leading processes, and the foundry will serve as a
platform to develop new, cutting-edge processes to serve customers targeting
the compound semiconductor industry.” Mimix
Broadband News Release SiCrystal Ships 3-Inch SiC SubstratesApril 6, 2006...SiCrystal, a manufacturer of silicon carbide (SiC) substrates has begun shipping
the semi insulating substrate in a 3” version. The German-based company
points out quality improvements such as: low stress level, fewer micropipes,
and superior homogeneity of resistivity (100% of wafer measures 105 Ohm cm.
The company says the substrates can be used in power, radio frequency (RF),
and optoelectronic applications. Company
News Release RFMD Ships WLAN Front-End Module for HandsetsApril 5, 2006...RFMD, the radio frequency integrated circuit developer, announced volume shipments
of its front-end module designed for embedded wireless WLAN in cellular handsets,
the RF5925. According to the company who is attending CTIA Wireless 2006, the
device is a complete front-end module that requires no external components,
giving it what they claim is the smallest footprint area of any 802.11g front-end
module on the market today. The device, designed for mobile phones, PDAs and
other handsets, features a WLAN power amplifier (PA), switch, and receive balun.
The company indicated that advanced wireless applications such as voice over
Internet Protocol (VOIP) are possible due to the device’s high data throughput
and performance characteristics. Company
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