News Briefs

Held during the week of August 10 in Austin, TX, NIWeek 2003 kicked off with a rousing reaffirmation of the slogan, "the software is the instrument." In his keynote address, Dr. James Truchard, NI president and CEO, emphasized the goal of "making the hardware disappear"—at least from the user's perspective. Truchard suggested what truly transparent hardware might look like: It would provide 32-bit sampling at 100-GHz rates and have infinite memory for storing stimulus patterns and captured data. In pursuit of that distant goal, the company introduced a 100-MHz digital waveform generator/analyzer, a 100-Msamples/s 16-bit arbitrary waveform generator, and a 100-Msamples/s 14-bit digitizer, among other hardware offerings.

Truchard envisions a flexible, transparent hardware, having no front panel, that would operate under the control of software. Software interoperability will be increasingly important, he intimated, saying that National Instruments is working with electrical and mechanical CAD firms to ensure that NI's software fits smoothly within design flows. www.ni.com

Probe-card supplier SV Probe Holding (San Jose, CA) and Ellipsiz (Singpore), a provider of semiconductor engineering and packaging services, have joined forces to provide probe cards to wafer fabs, test houses, and IC design centers in Asian countries. The joint venture, SV Probe Asia, will have its headquarters in Singapore and will operate one manufacturing facility in Vietnam. In addition, the company will have support facilities in Singapore, Taiwan, and China.

SV Probe Asia expects to roll out its first product in the fourth quarter of this year and hopes to employ about 200 people when production is fully ramped up in 2006.

In a prepared statement describing the venture, the companies cited data from VLSI Research, which predicted that the total available market for probe cards in Asia (excluding Japan) will increase by more than 32% to $129 million in 2005, while the world market, including the US, Europe and Japan, will collectively grow by 13%, to $477 million. www.svprobe.com.

As semiconductor manufacturers work to increase the number of features on a chip, they may receive help from a technology developed by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The NIST research team has developed a compact, diode-laser-based interferometer that can resolve distances of less than 10 pm. In addition, the team's efforts to produce durable, silicon-based measurement references have paid off with a method for writing patterns with 10-nm linewidths.

NIST researchers are packaging the technology into a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) system. The system writes patterns with dimensions that are determined by counting the atoms that make up the patterns' structural features. The patterns are long-lived, even outside a vacuum, and the researchers' work suggests that reactive ion etching can increase the patterns' three-dimensional relief.

Aiming for an accuracy of better than 1 nm, the research team intends to supply the semiconductor industry with benchmark references for calibrating measurement tools used in research and production. www.nist.gov.

The IEEE Standards Association is welcoming participants for a working group that is developing the P1644 standard, "Recommended Practice for Software Nomenclature—Software Naming Conventions for Application Software." The working group aims to develop a product-naming convention for stand-alone executable applications, hoping such a standard will improve the tracking, control, and management of software releases. Anyone interested in participating should contact Yvette Tanious at taniousya@navsea.navy.mil.

Credence Systems (Fremont, CA) has announced that it has settled its pending litigation with electronics distributor Reptron Electronics. Credence will pay Reptron $1.3 million. In turn, Reptron will provide Credence with components used in the manufacture of the Credence Quartet and Octet ATE systems. Both companies will also dismiss all claims asserted in the litigation.

In April 2002, Reptron filed a complaint, alleging that Credence had breached a contract to purchase certain components. Reptron originally sought damages of approximately $3.9 million. www.credence.com.

Defense. Northrop Grumman (Los Angeles) has reported Q2 2003 income from continuing operations of $207 million compared with $181 million for the same period of 2002. The defense manufacturer's sales for the second quarter of this year were $6.6 billion, an increase of 57% over the $4.2 billion for the same period of 2002. www.northropgrumman.com.

ASICS. In-Stat/MDR forecasts that worldwide merchant market dollar shipments of structured ASIC products will grow from the $5.2 million reached in 2002 to $460.3 million by 2007. The high-tech market-research firm says this translates to a forecast compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 144.9% over the 2002 to 2007 period. www.instat.com.

Manufacturing. Siliconware Precision Industries Ltd. (SPIL), a Taiwan-based test and assembly company, has reported Q2 revenues of $189.6 million (6.5 billion New Taiwanese dollars), an increase of 16.6% since the previous quarter and 21% over Q2 2002. SPIL reported net income of $18.5 million (639 million NT) for Q2 putting it back in black compared with Q1's net loss of $8.6 million (295 million NT). In Q2 2002, SPIL posted net income of $5.3 million (185 million NT). www.spil.com.tw.

EOS/ESD Symposium, September 21–25, Las Vegas. Sponsored by ESD Association. 315-339-6937; www.esda.org .

Autotestcon, September 22–25, Anaheim, CA. Sponsored by IEEE. www.autotestcon.com .

International Test Conference, September 30–October 2, Charlotte, NC. Sponsored by the IEEE. 202-973-8665; www.itctestweek.org .

Sensors Expo Fall, October 6–9, Anaheim, CA. Sponsored by Advanstar Communications. 800-331-5706; www.sensorsexpo.com.

International Symposium for Testing and Failure Analysis (ISTFA), November 2–6, Santa Clara, CA. Sponsored by Electronic Device Failure Analysis Society. 440-338-5151; www.edfas.org .

Symposium on Defect and Fault Tolerance in VLSI Systems, November 6–8, Cambridge, MA. Sponsored by IEEE-TTTC. computer.org/tab/tttc/ .

Productronica, November 11–14, Munich, Germany. Sponsored by Messe Muenchen. www.productronica.de .

International High-Level Design Validation and Test Workshop, November 12–14, San Francisco. Sponsored by IEEE. +33-467-418-523; www.hldvt.com/03 .

36th International Microelectronics Symposium, November 16–20, Boston. Sponsored by IMAPS. www.imaps.org .

To see our complete calendar of conferences and courses, visit www.tmworld.com/events .