Daily News Briefs

Two 17-year-old seniors at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, in Durham, N.C., will split a $40,000 scholarship they received for a project detailing their discovery of a new galaxy. Drew Foster and Ivana Vu earned third place in the team competition of the 2003-04 Siemens Westinghouse Competition in Math, Science and Technology. Through their research and investigation using spectroscopy and modern x-ray imaging, they figured out that a bright object in one photo from the Chandra X-ray Observatory represented billions of stars in a Seyfert II galaxy, a spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way. . . . Arthur Evans, founder and chairman of Wentworth Laboratories Inc., and Chris Mack, vice president of lithography for KLA-Tencor Corp., were honored for their contributions to the advancement of semiconductor manufacturing technology at the Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) 24th annual dinner and award ceremony held last night in Santa Clara, Calif. The technologists each received a 2003 SEMI Award for North America. Mack was recognized for his development of software programs that have enabled process engineers to increase the productivity of the lithography process. His work has driven many changes in masks, imaging tools, photoresist and measurement. Evans was recognized for his invention in 1976 of the blade type fixed-point probe card, which has remained unchanged since then and is still widely used in wafer test. This development allowed the high volume testing of increasingly complex devices. The innovation produced a paradigm shift in semiconductor testing, enabling the test industry to keep pace with both device design and the growing need for high volume test capability, SEMI said.