Two firms leave International SEMATECH

Jan. 8, 2003 – Austin, TX – International SEMATECH has lost two of its member companies, Europe’s STMicroelectronics NV and Korea’s Hynix Semiconductor Inc.

Both companies left the consortium at the end of 2002, but SEMATECH officials said that the departures won’t harm its research programs or put it into a budgetary pinch, reported the Knight Ridder Tribune.

The two companies were thought to have contributed $20 million or more to SEMATECH’s $140 million budget last year, but SEMATECH says it will have more money to spend — more than $150 million this year — because it is sharing in research efforts in Albany, NY, and elsewhere that have other sources of money.

“We are moving forward,” said Anne Englander, director of communications for SEMATECH. “Our members in general continue to find a lot of value in SEMATECH, particularly in such rotten times for the industry.”

The departure leaves SEMATECH with 10 members: AMD, Agere Systems Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Infineon AG, IBM Corp., Intel Corp., Motorola Inc., Philips Semiconductor, Texas Instruments Inc., and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.

SEMATECH employs about 550 workers.

SEMATECH officials say that Hynix has told them that it intends to rejoin the consortium once it goes through a corporate restructuring.

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