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Katherine's blog

Obsessions: Thin films, writing, small business, and random web flotsam

December 1, 2001

 
I love Mozart. Specifically the flute concertos (K 299, K 313, and K315). Just exactly the combination of calm and distraction that I needed to focus on this article. First draft is a bit more than half done, with a good outline for the remainder. Not as much as I wanted, but good progress.
posted 17:55 |

November 30, 2001

 
The 2001 Technology Roadmap was released today. Slides from the press presentation are on the SIA website. Information from the 2001 ITRS Conference is on the ITRS site. A story summarizing all the hairy details will be forthcoming as soon as I get a chance to write it, probably within the next few days.
posted 22:06 |

 
Long, slow, slog today without getting very much done. Frustrating, especially since I want to finish my next article for Semiconductor Magazine before I leave for IEDM. Sigh...

It's been a better than expected week, though. Twenty-two pages, large chunks of which I may actually be able to use for something. Amazing how little bits here and there add up.
posted 17:37 |

 
It reads like science fiction, but it's not. A research group at the University of Texas reports that it has attached quantum dots to living neurons. Peptide recognition molecules allow precise placement and control the separation between the two.
posted 10:25 |

November 29, 2001

 
Semiconductor International has written a good summary of low-k dielectric integration issues. Especially helpful in light of the most recent Semiconductor Roadmap, which pushes the introduction of low-k dielectrics even further into the future.
posted 16:06 |

 
For all you budding web geeks out there, frowning monkey has posted an excellent tutorial on cascading style sheets in his blog. Lots of links to other resources, too.
posted 13:01 |

 
Rambus' once formidable patent portfolio is looking more and more like a house of cards. A federal judge has barred Rambus from filing patent-infringement lawsuits against Infineon. The decision comes after a Virginia jury convicted Rambus of fraud for actively supporting "open" standards while simultaneously patenting standard-compliant designs. The ruling will protect Infineon's SDRAM and DDR SDRAM chips from future legal challenges.

Meanwhile, a judge in California dismissed all but two (of 400) claims in a patent infringement lawsuit brought by Rambus against Hynix. Hynix's fraud suit against Rambus got a big boost from the Virginia jury's decision, as well.
posted 11:57 |

 
Finally a bit of good news in the chip business. The Taipei Times reports that TSMC is rehiring laid-off workers at its WaferTech subsidiary. The company claims that its sub-0.18 micron processes are now operating at capacity.
posted 11:47 |

November 27, 2001

 
From the mailbag:
Applied Materials has purchased Schlumberger's e-beam wafer inspection business for cash. Looks like the equipment giant really is serious about taking on KLA-Tencor.
posted 15:52 |

 
What a mess. First, Intel cancelled a big order for SVG's 193-nm scanners due to delays. (See my Semiconductor Magazine article on next-generation litho for some of the repercussions of that debacle.) Now ASML, SVG's new parent, has announced it will kill the Micrascan V entirely. Since ASML made the acquisition in the first place because SVG had great technology and was a key Intel supplier, someone in Veldhoven has a huge amount of egg on his face right now.

Oh yeah, and now ASML has to move manufacturing of its own 193-nm platform to Connecticut. The US government only approved the SVG purchase after ASML agreed to keep lithography development in the US. What a mess.
posted 10:38 |

 
Interesting article in the New York Times about aircraft composites, like those used in the Airbus A300. It's a much better overview of composite technology than I'd expect in a consumer publication.

(You have to register to read the New York Times site. It's free, and worth the effort.)
posted 10:05 |

 
Nikkei Business has an interesting interview with Applied Materials chairman James Morgan. He argues that Japanese chip manufacturers need to invest more in order to avoid falling further behind during the next upturn. He's right, too.

What I'd like to understand is how Japanese businesses went from leaders to laggards in about a decade. Are we still seeing the lingering effects of the late 1980's bubble?
posted 09:39 |

November 25, 2001

 
Even if the semiconductor industry has bottomed, as some are now suggesting, bad news will continue to flow for a while. The latest is from stepper maker Nikon, which announced it would miss its previous forecasts for fiscal 2001 (which ends in March) by a wide margin.
posted 22:28 |

 
The Financial Times reports that Massachusetts scientists have cloned a human embryo. Six cells is a long way from a developmentally normal human baby, but the genie is clearly out of the bottle. It's only a matter of time before we'll have to face the ethical implications of cloning, instead of simply trying to wish the procedure away by banning it.
posted 21:44 |

 
As projects--any kind of projects--get bigger, they get more complex. Writing a 3000 word article is more difficult than writing six 500-word articles. Similar jumps happen in the transition from articles to books (or short stories to novels), or from individual contributor to manager. It's a change in kind as well as a change in size. I'm wrestling with several of those changes now: changing from employee to owner, from managing part of a site to managing all of it, from creating pieces of someone else's design to creating the design itself. Huh. No wonder I feel overwhelmed sometimes.
posted 17:34 |

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