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WASHINGTON -- Dr. Rick Tsai, president and chief executive of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., and David McCormick, undersecretary Bureau of Industry & Security, U.S. Department of Commerce will speak next month on challenges and opportunities presented by the increasing integration of the U.S., Taiwan and China semiconductor markets.

The Taiwan + China Semiconductor Outlook 2006 will be held Jan. 12, in Santa Clara, CA. The US-Taiwan Business Council is host of the event, the third in a serie. The SIA is a cosponsor.

Visit www.taiwan-china-outlook.com for more information.

FRAMINGHAM, MA – The appeal of low-cost and portable PCs will continue to drive double-digit growth of the PC market in 2006, despite fewer replacements and slower economic growth, according to IDC.

Following third-quarter growth of more than 17% year-on-year, worldwide PC shipments are now expected to grow by nearly 15% in the fourth quarter, boosting annual growth a half point ahead of the 15.3% rate in 2004 to 15.8% in 2005 and raising the outlook for growth in 2006 to 10.5%.

SAN JOSE -- North American-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.09 billion in orders in November on a 90-day average basis and a book-to-bill ratio of 0.92 according to SEMI.

A book-to-bill of 0.92 means that $92 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month.

Bookings were about even with revised October levels of $1.09 billion and 18% below the $1.33 billion in orders posted last year.

The three-month average of worldwide billings in November was $1.18 billion, up 3% from October and down 12% from November 2004.

"Bookings for North American-based semiconductor equipment providers continue to show stability, with signs of some improvement over the previous quarter," said Stanley T. Myers, president and CEO of SEMI. "The well-managed spending cycle throughout 2005 has been encouraging and the equipment market is positioned for growth in 2006."

The SEMI book-to-bill is a ratio of three-month moving averages of worldwide bookings and billings for North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers. Billings and bookings figures are in millions of U.S. dollars.

SAN JOSE – Electronic design automation revenue for the third quarter was up 6%, to $1.1 billion, over last year, the EDA Consortium said today. PCB and multichip module revenue was flat, at $81 million.

EDAC chairman Wally Rhines called the strength "broad-based, with all regions up, as well as nearly all product segments."

EDA license and maintenance sales grew 6% in the third quarter to $851 million.

EDA's largest tool category, computer-aided engineering, generated revenue of $469 million in Q3, up 4% over in 2004. IC physical design and verification reported revenue of $296 million, a 9% rise. Semiconductor property revenue totaled $199 million, up 5%, and services revenue rose 9% to $72 million.

North America, EDA's largest region, purchased $532 million of EDA products and services, up 3%. Western Europe sales increased 7% to $218 million. Revenue in Japan grew 9% to $243 million. Elsewhere, sales rose for the 27th straight quarter, increasing 9% to $129 million.

Reporting companies employed 21,140 professionals in Q3, up 3% from a year ago.

Bolton, MA -- DownStream Technologies opened its new corporate headquarters in Marlborough, MA. Located in region’s high-tech corridor along Rte. 495, the facility will house the company’s financial, marketing, sales and R&D operations.

“With the introduction of our newest product, BluePrint for PCBs and the increase in sales of our industry-standard CAM350, it became apparent that we needed to expand in order to accommodate the growth of the company,” said Rick Almeida, founder of DownStream. “Our new facility is optimally equipped to help us respond to the needs of our customers, as well being ideally located so we can continue to attract the best talent in the high-tech industry.”

The new facility allows the company to add engineering and support personnel.

The new address is:
DownStream Technologies, LLC
225 Cedar Hill Street, Suite 33
Marlborough, MA 01752
(508) 970-0670

PALO ALTO -- SiliconPipe received the Frost & Sullivan 2005 Excellence in Technology Award in the field of system-level interconnect solutions for its Novias technology. The technology is based on the removal of performance-limiting and expensive plated vias from the interconnection channel.

The technology was developed to create stair step interconnections among IC packages, interconnection substrates and connectors. Prototypes have already been introduced and it will soon be incorporated in products.

"SiliconPipe interconnection technologies enable product and system designers to use simple I/O buffers to send signals well beyond 2 Gbps," says F & S research analyst Sivakumar Muthuramalingam. "The company's innovations in interconnect technologies cover the entire spectrum of electronic assembly from their simple, cost-effective Stair Step Packaging (SSP) for ICs to low cost, high performance, backplane connectors used in PCBs."

"SiliconPipe's unique and novel solutions leverage existing manufacturing infrastructure and cost reductions and performance gains are achievable with relatively simple modifications to current design and manufacturing practices," notes Muthuramalingam. "Since these interconnection channels will operate at frequencies that are well beyond today's requirements, current products that incorporate these 'clean' interconnections could offer advantages of lower power consumption and better scalability."

The award is presented yearly to the company that has pioneered the development and introduction of an innovative technology into the market; a technology that has either impacted or has the potential to impact several market sectors.