Monthly Archives: March 2001

Things got worse fast in Taiwan in last month. Sales at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd, dropped 28% in February from January’s level, while those of United Microelectronics Corp. fell 21%, according to Daiwa Securities Senior Analyst Yasuo Nakane, in his regular report for Nikkei Microdevices. DRAM makers didn?t fare any better, with most seeing double digit declines. The plunge in sales ranged from 28% at Powerchip Semiconductor Corp. to only 1% at Macronix International Co., Ltd., who continued to sell healthy quantities of mask ROMs to Nintendo.

Assembly folks saw slightly smaller drop offs. Advanced Semiconductor Engineering reported a 8% decrease from the month before Silicon Precision Industries Co., Ltd. a 14% reduction.

The one bright spot was chip set maker VIA Technologies, Inc. whose sales increased 5% in February compared to January, and were up 125% compared to the same month last year.

Hitachi Cable Ltd. says it plans to invest some $8 million (Y1 billion) to expand its capacity to make lead frames by 50%. The company will add facilities in Yonezawa, Yamagata prefecture, aiming to increase its total lead frame sales from around $156 million (Y20 billion) now to $250 million (Y30 billion) in three years.

March 19, 2001 – At the 26th SPIE Microlithography Symposium, held in Santa Clara, CA in February, the BACUS working group held its traditional panel discussion of reticle-related issues on Monday evening. The topic was “Reticle Defects – Will They Break Moore’s Law?” The general consensus that even 50nm defects – which will be printable in 2005 – will not stop the industry. Greg Hughes of Dupont Photomasks summed up the industry?s position when he said, “We will be able to repair all the defects that we find and we can’t be blamed for defects we cannot find.”

The Lithography Technical Group?s panel on “157nm Lithography -What is needed to have it on time?” seemed less reassuring. Panelists could not agree when ?on time? was. Will Conley of Motorola stated: “It will be ready when it was ready,” and then listed many issues from MEEF to integration to outgassing, all yet to be resolved. Later speakers pointed out other challenges, such as shipping reticles without pellicles, calcium fluoride quality, and timing. Yan Borodofsky of Intel proclaimed that if 157nm at k1=0.4 isn?t solid in 2002, the first generation of 70nm chips will be tailored to the capabilities of advanced 193nm tools. If the technology isn?t production-worthy in 2004, Borodofsky claimed that it would miss the window of opportunity. Panelists from Nikon and Canon projected mass production of 157nm tools in 2005, too late according to Borodofsky?s time-table.

A special panel discussion on “When will EUV tools be needed and available,” produced even more disturbing conclusions. Paulo Gargini pointed out that the first opportunity to insert 193nm had been missed and that the key opportunity to insert EUV would come in 2003. However, Scott Hector of Motorola pointed out that the cost of having EUV ready for 70nm in 2005 would be around 20 times the funds spent on 248nm lithography in 2000, roughly $10 billion, by this reporter?s estimate. While there were technical challenges in the source and mask substrate, the panel did not expect any technical show stoppers. Hector, however, pointed out that a throughput of 80 wafers/hour would be needed to justify the projected tool cost, which falls on the familiar exponentially rising line. Such a throughput requires a 40-fold improvement beyond current technology.

Don Sweeney of Lawrence Livermore Laboratories reported that it currently takes a full year to make a mirror set for EUV. Industrial insertion would require manufacturing 300 such sets per year, a daunting challenge. However, the final word was perhaps Paulo Gargini?s who pointed out that 13nm would be only 50% of the exposure tool market even in 2012. That market would only be 1% of the $500B semiconductor industry, so the market for tools requiring $10B investment in the next 4 years would be $2.5B in 10 years. While the promoters of EUV technology may be correct that it is absolutely essential that the toolmakers buy in to the EUV program to ensure the prosperity of the semiconductor industry, it is equally clear that present business models cannot justify such commitments in the presence of other needs and uncertainties.

On balance, the 2001 SPIE Lithography Symposium was the most successful to date, with key results reported both at the leading edge and the practical production level. However, there are many challenges and changes ahead, perhaps more than any profession can deal with on a 2-year roadmap cycle. However, continuing the collaboration among the sub-fields of lithography evident at this conference should make accomplishments more timely.

March 19, 2001 – Sunnyvale, CA – AMD announced that it ranked fifth among US based companies receiving patents by the US Patent and Trademark Office in 2000. Additionally, AMD ranked 12th in the world.

AMD president and COO, Hector Ruiz said, “AMD received 1,055 parents last year. ?We think there?s a strong connection between AMD innovations, our continued success, and the number of awards won by our microprocessors and flash memory devices in recent years.”

AMD ranked among the top 25 companies in the number of new US patents received for the third year in a row. In 1998, AMD ranked 24th, and it ranked 17th in 1999. Ruiz commented, “Our rise on the patent list shows our growing status as a technology leader.”

In 2000, IBM Corp. ranked first in receiving patents, with 2,922. NEC was second, having received 2,034, while Canon, Samsung and Lucent round out the top five.

SALT LAKE CITY — Daw Technologies, Inc., which designs, engineers, manufactures and installs ultra-clean manufacturing environments, announced its financial results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2000.

Total revenue for the fourth quarter was $10.2 million and net earnings for the quarter were $2.3 million. For the year, the company reported total revenue of $52.6 million, a 16.4 percent increase over 1999. Net earnings for the year were $3.5 million, or $0.21 per diluted share, compared to a net loss of $7.6 million, or ($0.61) per share, in 1999.

The company attributed its improved financial performance to several factors, including rigorous cost-cutting measures begun in early 2000 and efforts to diversify the company’s business, both geographically and among industry segments, and a top to bottom restructure of the company’s operations to focus on individual business units.

“The year 2000 was clearly a turning point for the company,” said Michael J. Shea, newly appointed president of the company. “The company’s weak results in the prior two years necessitated that we take extreme measures in 2000 to return to profitability, and our financial results for the year 2000 show that those measures have begun to pay off. The company has become much more efficient and cost-conscious, an example of which is the fact that we have nearly doubled our revenues per employee in 2000 vs. 1999. These increased efficiencies, combined with our efforts to expand beyond our traditional base in the semiconductor industry, position us very well for the year 2001 and beyond.”

The company also announced that its backlog of work at December 31, 2000 was approximately $28.3 million, as compared to $19.7 million at the end of 1999 and $12.8 million at the end of 1998.

Daw Technologies, Inc. provides ultra-clean manufacturing environments for customers throughout the world, and specializes in the design, engineering and installation of cleanroom and mini-environment systems that meet stringent semiconductor, pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturing requirements. The company also provides advanced, high precision manufacturing and specialized painting services on an OEM (original equipment manufacturer) basis for various customers.

PRINCETON, N.J. — Sensors Unlimited, Inc., a supplier of InGaAs technology that advances the performance of optical networks, has developed the SU-10PSR, a 10 Gb/s PIN receiver for advanced optical networks.

Sensors’ high-speed optical receivers support high-bandwidth DWDM, SONET/SDH, transponders and long-haul/metro system applications.

“Our long history and expertise with Indium Gallium Arsenide (InGaAs) and state-of-the-art optical component design, fabrication and supply, uniquely position us to deliver high performing optical receivers with long-term reliability,” said Greg Olsen, president of Sensors Unlimited. “We have applied Sensors’ proven success with InGaAs technology to our 10 Gb/s receivers, enabling system vendors to build next-generation systems that will meet the growing demand for increased capacity in high-speed optical networks.”

“As optical networks push for higher and higher capacities, demand for high-speed optical components such as optical receivers continues to grow,” said John Lively, director, Optical Components at RHK, Inc. “RHK estimates the market for 10 Gb/s receivers for DWDM and SONET/SDH applications will exceed $500 million this year, and will grow to over$1 billion by 2004. Sensors is one of a select group of suppliers with the requisite III-V semiconductor expertise to deliver these components.”

Sensors Unlimited’s optical receiver features low ripple, low group delay, high PIN responsivity and high sensitivity, which reduce the need for optical amplification. The SU-10PSR is in a hermetically sealed package, which ensures long-term reliability, integrates an InGaAs pin diode with a Gallium Arsenide HBT preamplifier and complies with the standard requirements of OC-192/STM-64 SONET/SDH systems. Other features include an SMA electrical output connector, low dark current, low capacitance, high overload, and wide bandwidth.

Sensors Unlimited’s technical capabilities include a class 1,000/100 cleanroom for complete device processing and testing of III-V compound detectors and lasers. Facilities include photolithography, dielectric deposition, thermal and e-beam metal deposition, p-contact diffusion and annealing, chip dicing and automatic probing. Test facilities include infrared detector testing and automated laser diode characterization in wavelength range 0.65 microns – 5 microns.

March 16, 2001 — A week after laying off 5,000 people company wide, Intel Corp. has put its multimillion dollar expansion project for its Hudson, MA, facility on indefinite hold.

Intel has also delayed for a second time the opening of a new wafer fab in Ireland, pushing the opening day back to the third-quarter of 2003. Foundations for a 50,000-square-foot structure, known as Mod 4, had already been completed in Hudson.

The new $250 million worth of construction was to be part of a $1 billion investment in the Hudson plant that Intel announced in December. Intel will still spend the other $750 million, for state-of-the-art chip-making equipment.

The 2,300 people already employed at the plant will keep their jobs, and officials there say the company continues to hire workers with specialized skills.

In other news, Compaq Computer Corp., which employs about 5,400 people in Massachusetts, said it would lay off 5,000 employees worldwide, and plus thousands more temporary and contract workers.

Computer maker Sun Microsystems Inc. continues to work on a $100 million expansion of its Burlington campus; the leading data storage company, EMC Corp., still plans to build major new facilities in Southborough and Westborough; and although networking giant Cisco Systems Inc. announced earlier this week that it would cut up to 8,000 jobs, the company has not publicly retreated from a plan to build 1.8 million square feet of office space in the Littleton area.

But Intel and other makers of microchips are getting hit especially hard.

On Wednesday, Texas Instruments Inc., the leading maker of the digital chips used in cell phones, shuttered a plant in Santa Cruz, Calif., and laid off 600 workers.

On Tuesday, the European chip maker ST Microelectronics cut its first-quarter earnings estimate, announced a hiring freeze, and slashed planned capital expenditures by $600 million.

March 16, 2001 — With foot-and-mouth disease wreaking havoc overseas, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has temporarily prohibited the importation of livestock, fresh meat and related products and ruminants from Europe.

Also, USDA officials have been asking airline passengers who report that they had been on farms in disease-heavy areas of Europe to dip their shoes in a bleach or sodium-carbonate solution.

Foot-and-mouth disease has reached crisis proportions in England, where some farmers have been forced to slaughter their entire stocks of cattle, sheep, or pigs. To date, more than 80,000 hoofed animals have been culled for slaughter in Britain alone. Though foot-and-mouth disease is not known to harm humans, but humans who have been in sustained contact with infected soil can spread it.

Until recently, a typical day at Logan Airport would see perhaps only one passenger stop to disinfect his or her shoes at the airport’s tiny antiseptic station – usually after a trip to a remote farm village in Africa or Asia, The Boston Globe reported today.

With growing concerns that the latest livestock disease striking fear across the United Kingdom and parts of Western Europe could surface in the United States, airline passengers arriving from the British countryside are being asked to submit to a low-key disinfectant procedure at Logan.

But since news of the European outbreak grabbed banner headlines and sent worry across the EU community, daily traffic to the airport pitstop has increased tenfold, especially among the 1,300 or so passengers arriving from the United Kingdom, USDA officials say.

“Either people are afraid to speak up, or people don’t think they were in the areas of concern,” said USDA inspector Donna Fernandes.

The foot-and-mouth outbreak has caused such a stir in Boston as to swamp the USDA’s cramped Logan office with a constant stream of phone calls, workers there say. Director Richard Mytkowicz estimates that he has spent 80 percent of his time in the past week responding to foot-and-mouth inquiries.

March 15, 2001–Dallas, Texas–Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) yesterday announced plans to consolidate its Santa Cruz, CA, operations into other existing manufacturing facilities, primarily in Dallas and Houston. The TI-Santa Cruz facility, which primarily manufactures semiconductors used in computer hard-disk drives, will be closed in phases through the end of 2001. About 600 people are employed at the site.

“Manufacturing can be more efficiently managed by consolidating this capacity into locations with the potential for higher-volume, more technologically advanced processes,” says Kevin Ritchie, TI senior vice president for worldwide manufacturing operations. “This decision, while difficult, increases competitiveness and efficiency.”

Employees will receive a comprehensive severance package that will include separation pay, extended insurance benefits, and job-search assistance. TI will establish an outplacement center on site through the duration of the phase-out, with professional consultants to counsel employees and assist them in locating new jobs.

This consolidation is part of previously discussed cost-reduction activity and is a follow-on to TI’s decision to more tightly focus the semiconductor products it makes for the hard-disk drive market and shift more resources to higher-growth opportunities.

March 15, 2001–Santa Clara, California–Applied Materials, Inc. announced today that it will implement a voluntary separation plan as part of its continuing efforts to reduce costs in response to further cutbacks in capital equipment investment by semiconductor manufacturers.

This program will be offered to up to 1,000 employees on a selective basis, the majority of whom are in Santa Clara, CA, and Austin, TX. A separation pay and benefits package will be provided to eligible employees who choose to leave the company under the voluntary program.

Since late January, Applied Materials has implemented a significant number of cost reduction programs in response to the sudden and sharp change in the business environment. However, the company feels that continued slowdown in demand for semiconductor equipment requires further action such as the voluntary separation plan.

Despite this current slower worldwide economic growth and continued weakness in the semiconductor market, Applied Materials reports that it remains confident about the long-term business outlook for the industry and the company.