Evonik Industries AG and BASF have agreed to collaborate on the development of ceria-based slurries for fabricating computer chips. The agreement will leverage BASF’s chemical expertise, global marketing and distribution capabilities with Evonik´s leading position in nanomaterials. The resulting slurries are expected to be commercialized in 2009. Slurries containing nanoscale materials such as ceria are used to polish the silicon dioxide surfaces of wafers to produce highly planar surfaces in...