Monthly Archives: March 2001

March 14, 2001–Sunnyvale, California–Thomas West Inc. (TWI) today announced a major capital expansion and upgrade of its applications lab and manufacturing facilities as part of an ongoing investment to provide its customers with the most advanced CMP materials and technology for semiconductor manufacturing. The increased capacity and expansion is in direct response to increased customer demand for the company’s advanced CMP pads.

The expansion, to be completed by end of July 2001, includes a significant increase in manufacturing space. The new manufacturing facility will be fully integrated and designed to meet the demanding requirements of the semiconductor industry. TWI is also doubling the size of its applications cleanroom and adding CMP equipment and additional cleaning and metrology tools. The lab is to be completed by mid-May.

“The upgrade and expansion is part of our ongoing effort to develop and manufacture high quality new products in support of our customers’ manufacturing needs,” says Don Dietz, TWI vice president of operations. “The company’s growing sales and customer requirements demand increased manufacturing resources and R&D capability. With this expansion, the engineering team is equipped with the additional resources necessary to tackle the existing CMP planarization, cost of ownership, and uniformity issues. This expansion will enable the manufacturing team to sustain and improve product quality, while ensuring adequate capacity for the future.”

Thomas West relocated to the current 50,000-sq.-ft. manufacturing and business headquarters in Sunnyvale, CA, in 1997 in order to keep up with demand as its CMP and HDD tape businesses grew. Even with this recent upgrade, sufficient space remains for future expansion of the manufacturing area.

March 14, 2001–Sunnyvale, California–Silicon Storage Technology, Inc. (SST), a leader in flash memory technology, is entering into a multifaceted technology licensing and deep submicron foundry agreement with Oki Electric Industry Co. Ltd., a worldwide supplier of semiconductor products.

Under the terms of the agreement, Oki will provide a high-volume, advanced technology foundry service for SST’s 0.25-micron flash memory products based on SST’s SuperFlash memory technology. Initial wafer production is scheduled to begin in first half of 2002.

Also part of the agreement, SST will provide Oki access to its SuperFlash technology for embedded use in its semiconductor products targeted toward communication applications. SST’s SuperFlash technology has the benefit of uniform small sector and low power consumption. Furthermore, the two companies will cooperate on products targeted for Bluetooth applications.

“Our agreement with Oki is another excellent example of the successful adoption of SuperFlash technology for embedded applications due to SuperFlash’s superior functionality, scalability and low-cost structure,” says Bing Yeh, president and CEO at SST. “SST’s products and technology will be incorporated into a variety of system applications at Oki, and we believe that they will be a perfect match for Oki’s deep submicron foundry process. The combination of the two companies’ technology will result in expanded features and benefits to the end user. We are very pleased to work with our partners such as Oki to further strengthen SuperFlash as the technology-of-choice for embedded applications.”

Other deep submicron foundry and technology partners of SST include National Semiconductor, Sanyo, TSMC, and Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp. SST will receive royalty payments from products sold by Oki that incorporate SuperFlash technology.

March 14, 2001–Santa Ana, California–Microsemi Corp. has received a patent for its breakthrough Monolithic Microwave Surface Mount semiconductor packaging technology that eliminates costly ceramic and metal packages commonly used for components operating at frequencies up to 12 GHz in high-speed microwave applications.

The U.S. patent, No. 6,187,611, covers the unique manufacturing process Microsemi uses to create high-speed hermetic flip chip components that are easily mounted on circuit boards and require 1/10th the space of conventional devices.

“Until now, manufacturers of fixed microwave and high speed wireless LAN circuits had no choice beyond ceramic or metal packages for these frequencies because parasitic limitations prevent the use of plastics,” explains John Caruso, general manager of the company’s Microwave division. “We’ve solved that problem and are shipping surface mount silicon switches and tuning components capable of 12 GHz performance.”

In the patented MMSM manufacturing process, metallization and etching techniques are used to create semiconductor devices that are packaged during the fabrication of the wafer itself. Interconnections are made by precise photolithographic methods that eliminate wire bonding, another source of parasitic problems. Combined with their substantially reduced size, the resulting products minimize parasitic capacitance. The process also is credited with an ability to provide consistency both across each wafer and from water to wafer.

March 14, 2001–Osaka, Japan–Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. has signed a patent license agreement with Los Altos, CA-based Rambus Inc. for SDRAM controllers and double data rate (DDR) controllers that directly interface with these types of memory.

Under the agreement, the royalty rates for controllers that directly interface with DDR SDRAM are greater than the RDRAM compatible rates. The agreement also includes royalties for controllers that directly interface with SDRAM, as well as a license fee for the entire agreement. The agreement is effective for shipments of licensed products by Matsushita beginning October 1, 2000.

In entering the agreement, Matsushita becomes the eighth company to sign SDRAM and DDR controller memory licenses with Rambus. Samsung, NEC, Toshiba, Hitachi, Oki, Elpida, and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. also have patent license agreements with Rambus.

March 13, 2001–Munich, Germany–Responding to escalating concerns that the cost of testing complex semiconductor devices may soon exceed the cost of fabrication, Synopsys, Inc. and Agilent Technologies Inc. today announced an agreement targeted at reducing the overall cost of test by bridging the gap between electronic design automation (EDA) test software and automated test equipment (ATE) hardware.

Both Synopsys and Agilent recognize that the future of affordable, high quality manufacturing test lies in strong coordination between ATE companies and EDA tool providers. This agreement establishes a framework for close evaluation of potential innovations in test technology for new and existing worldwide customers as they seek to bring complex system-on-a-chip (SoC) devices to market.

Rapid growth in SoC designs has led to the proliferation of complex, high pin-count devices that are dramatically more difficult and expensive to test. As a result, both companies are facing a strong mandate from customers to resolve this situation. In response, Synopsys and Agilent will explore the ability to make EDA test tools aware of intended ATE environments for SoC devices in order to synthesize the optimal design-for-test (DFT) structure. Moreover, ATE hardware must have the ability to fully use every DFT resource available on the device.

“This strategic alliance, the first of its kind, clearly positions Agilent and Synopsys at the forefront of the system-on-a-chip era where design and test must be linked,” says Tom Newsom, vice president and general manager of Agilent Technologies’ System-on-a-Chip Business Unit. “We aim to provide our customers with huge benefits in time-to-market and cost-of-test savings from our initiatives that shatter the wall between design and test.”

March 13, 2001–Hawthorne, California–OSI Systems Inc. today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to sell its wholly owned subsidiary Silicon Microstructures (SMI) to ELMOS Semiconductor AG for approximately $6.5 million. The transaction is scheduled to close by the end of March.

The sale amount includes $6 million in cash to be paid to OSI Systems upon closing, and an additional $462,000 for certain capital equipment items being purchased by SMI from OSI Systems’ UDT Sensors subsidiary. The sale agreement also includes a 3-year commitment from UDT Sensors to supply 4-in. silicon foundry wafers to SMI, and to dedicate limited manufacturing facilities to be used by SMI for its etching operations.

SMI was acquired by OSI Systems in November 1998 from Exar Corp. SMI’s products include ultra-precise mechanical sensing structures that provide an interface between the physical world and the electronic world of signal processing. The products are used in automotive applications such as emission control, engine control, and brakes, as well as in disposable medical devices and industrial systems for heating and ventilation.

“We are pleased to announce the sale of SMI to ELMOS Semiconductor,” says Deepak Chopra, OSI Systems’ president and chief executive officer. “SMI is a proven innovator and leader in the field of silicon pressure sensor technology, and has contributed to the growth of OSI Systems’ knowledge-base. One of our major considerations in proceeding with this transaction was to set the stage for what we hope will be a long, continued relationship with SMI and ELMOS. While we see a bright future for SMI, OSI Systems is focusing our operations on other key growth areas, like OSI Fibercomm, our fiber optic components business, where we have been experiencing significant growth. Going forward the three major thrusts for our company will be our fiber optics, security products, and medical device businesses. Our strategy has been to cultivate our resources in order to drive and generate value from these business lines.”

March 13, 2001–Bloomington, Minnesota–August Technology Corp. today announced that it has received orders for NSX Series inspection systems from two new U.S.-based customers with applications in the emerging markets of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and photonics.

“The NSX Series has proven to be a valuable inspection solution for these emerging segments of the microelectronics industry,” says Mayson Brooks, August Technology’s vice president of sales and marketing. “These newly developed photonics and MEMS devices are fabricated on wafers in a process similar to semiconductors, making the NSX an ideal solution for detecting defects and providing information for process enhancement for these customers.”

MEMS, also referred to as micro-machines, combine electrical circuitry and mechanical systems to perform specific functions and include devices such as optical switches used in networking applications, air bag sensors, and pressure sensors. Photonics devices are used to guide, detect, and control light sources in communications networking.

In the past several months the company also has announced sales to the optoelectronics, micro display, data storage, and print head markets.

March 13, 2001–Washington, DC–The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) today will enter a new voluntary partnership to reduce emissions of perfluorocompounds–the most potent and persistent of all global warming gases, which are used by the semiconductor industry to clean semiconductor manufacturing equipment and to etch wafers–10% from 1995 levels by the end of 2010.

SIA is signing the Memorandum of Understanding with EPA on the ‘PFC Reduction Climate Partnership’ today on behalf of 21 semiconductor manufacturers. The partnership will promote global reductions of perfluorocompound gases, including perfluorocarbons, hydrofluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride. Perfluorocompounds have, on average, 10,000 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide over 100 years, plus they can persist in the atmosphere from 2,000 to 50,000 years.

Participating companies include: Advanced Micro Devices, Sunnyvale, CA; Agere Systems, Allentown, PA; Conexant Systems, Newport Beach, CA; Dominion Semiconductor, Manassas, VA; Eastman Kodak Co., Rochester, NY; Fairchild Semiconductor Corp., South Portland, ME; Hewlett Packard, Palo Alto, CA; Hyundai Semiconductor America, Eugene, OR; IBM Microelectronics Division, Armonk, NY; Intel Corp., Santa Clara, CA; Intersil Corp., Irvine, CA; LSI Logic, Milpitas, CA; Micron Technology, Boise, ID; Motorola, Schaumberg, IL; National Semiconductor, Santa Clara, CA; NEC Electronics, Japan; Philips Semiconductors, The Netherlands; Sony Semiconductor Co. of America, San Antonio, TX; ST Microelectronics, Italy; and Texas Instruments, Dallas, TX.

This new partnership complements efforts by the World Semiconductor Council and other semiconductor trade associations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.

BOSTON, MA — CleanRooms East 2001 is officially underway, with a record crowd on hand for this year’s show.

The event attracted more than 2,500 professionals from an array of contamination control-related industries -from pharmaceutical and biotechnology to defense and research and development – represented.

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“It really runs across the board,” said James Enos, vice president and group publishing director of CleanRooms Group. “Attendance is up 50 percent this year.”

The three-day event, which is taking place at the World Trade Center, began Monday with a full day of conference programs that covered a variety of topics including new ISO cleanroom standards and biological contamination control. The conference programs will continue through Wednesday.

The highlight of CleanRooms East however, is the exhibition hall with 182 companies exhibiting in 237 booths. In the afternoon, officials are planning to construct an expandable cleanroom system on the show floor. The exhibition hall will also be open on Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Earlier in the day, legendary Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach welcomed attendees of the conference during his breakfast keynote speech at a special breakfast. In his trademark no-nonsense style, Auerbach recounted tales of his coaching days offered insight to his style of management.

“One on one. That’s what the name of the game is,” Auerbach said.

CleanRooms Hall of Fame inductee Betty Peterson was also formally honored during the kickoff breakfast.

LIVINGSTON, Scotland — Kymata Ltd announced the opening of an additional 50,000-square-foot planar fabrication, packaging and test facility in Livingston, Scotland.

This facility more than triples its total production capacity; reinforcing Kymata’s commitment to meet the ever growing demands for next generation optical components and integrated optical devices. Kymata provides next-generation integrated optical devices

The new state-of-the-art facility will be used to increase production of existing optical components and integrated optical devices, such as the Arrayed Waveguide Gratings (AWGs) and the Optical Channel Power Monitor using silica-on-silicon technology. The facility will also be used in the future to manufacture next generation integrated optical devices using Micro-Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technology and IBM’s unique silicon oxynitride (SiON) technology licensed to Kymata in November 2000.

“This new world class facility together with our highly skilled teams enables us to provide our customers with the entire production cycle, including full design, fabrication, testing, and packaging services. This enables us to offer quicker product lead times with increased reliability,” said Kymata’s Operations Director, Clive Wilson. “This new facility offers class 10, 100 and 1000 clean room facilities and is consistent with Kymata’s commitment to produce the highest quality next-generation planar based optical devices.”

Discussions on building the second facility began in May of 2000, in July construction was underway, and by January 2001 sample production from the new facility commenced. Kymata now has one of the largest and most advanced planar opto-electronic facilities in the world.