Monthly Archives: September 2004

ChipPAC International intends to finance the tender offer with all or a portion of the net proceeds from new senior notes to be issued by STATS ChipPAC. In addition, ChipPAC International intends to redeem any notes not validly tendered in the tender offer, under the terms of the indenture.

(September 7, 2004) Franklin, Mass.&#8212Sales for Speedline Technologies, Inc. , during the second quarter of 2004 were up more than 61 percent over the same period in 2003. Bookings also surged, increasing 85 percent over the first quarter of 2003. At the
end of the period, the business backlog was 3.5 times higher than at the same time last year.

September 7, 2004 – Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing has achieved functional 0.13-micron 300mm wafers from its Fab 7, showing silicon results that exceeded internal targets within five months of the first equipment installation. According to the company, it has also launched engineering 300mm wafers at Fab 7 for its 0.11-micron process, as well for the 90nm platform it is jointly developing with IBM.

For 200mm and 300mm manufacturing, Chartered is reportedly already engaging with customers on its 0.13- and 0.11-micron solutions, as well as on the landmark 90nm cross-foundry platform that will be available at both Chartered’s Singapore-based Fab 7 and IBM’s East Fishkill, NY fab.

“Chartered continues to make progress in readying production and lining up customers for Fab 7, our first 300mm facility,” said Kay Chai “KC” Ang, senior VP of fab operations at Chartered.

Customers are utilizing Chartered’s 0.13-micron solutions from Fab 6, a 200mm facility, to deliver a broad variety of leading-edge and next-generation system-on-chip products, such as high-performance graphics chips, storage and networking products, wireless LAN products, PC peripherals and optical drives.

Also, Chartered is offering its 0.11-micron process as an intermediary node to 0.13 micron from its Fab 6 and Fab 7. Chartered’s 0.11-micron process offerings are achieved with a 10% shrink of Chartered’s 0.13-micron design rule, and thus reduce implementation risks while lowering the cost/die. The 0.11-micron solutions support faster speed and enhanced performance, and are targeted for fast-moving products such as graphic chips, optical drives, and high-speed SRAMs, said the company.

Simultaneously, as part of the joint development and reciprocal manufacturing agreement between Chartered and IBM, a team of IBM technical experts is in Singapore to transfer the jointly developed 90nm technology from IBM’s 300mm facility in East Fishkill, NY.

The teams from Chartered and IBM are also working together to qualify the equipment set at Fab 7, and align Fab 7’s equipment configuration and process flow with those at IBM’s facility to reportedly enable the industry’s first dual-source 90-nm platform.

Following the launch of 90nm engineering wafers, Fab 7 remains on schedule to manufacture 90nm SOI products for IBM in mid-2005, with Chartered reportedly becoming the only dedicated foundry to have advanced SOI capabilities.

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TEMPE, Ariz., Sept. 7, 2004 – Atomic force microscopes (AFMs) allow scientists to peer at the nano world. Up until now, however, AFMs have largely focused on academic research. Tempe, Ariz.-based Molecular Imaging Corp. is working to expand that focus and open doors to other research markets, including nanotechnology and nano-level life sciences.

The firm’s desire to delve into markets such as life sciences has been accelerated in the last decade by the development of the Arizona Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University (ASU), the school that gave birth to nearby Molecular Imaging (MI) in 1993.

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“This will be the best place in the world for this [bioscience] type of activity. Period,” said Stuart Lindsay, an ASU physics researcher who co-founded the firm.

“Unless there’s an earthquake and MI and ASU fall into a hole in the ground, what you see now is just the starting point.”

Lindsay’s recently published research on new MI AFM systems demonstrated a technique that allows scientists to monitor the effects of potential drugs on an ever-smaller scale, a process which could speed up drug-discovery efforts.

Lindsay was one among a half-dozen scientists who worked on the study published in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The PicoTREC AFM system used in the study was selected in July by R&D Magazine as one of the 100 most technologically significant products of the year.

The nanotech applications of Molecular Imaging’s products include testing properties of organic and inorganic nanotubes and single-molecule electronic switches, according to Daphna Yaniv, MI’s former marketing director.

AFMs are a type of scanning probe microscope (SPM) where a probe scans a surface and detects features as tiny as a tenth of a nanometer. The scanned information is translated into a visual image on a computer screen.

“I like to compare it to an old-style phonograph needle,” said Vance Nau, MI’s president and CEO. “You’re skimming across a surface and you’re sensing that surface.”

Transmission electron microscopy produces higher-resolution nano-scale images, but it can only view objects in a vacuum, Nau said.

“AFM is the only way to get that [nano] level of resolution under ambient conditions,” said Nau. Thus, researchers can run tests at various temperatures and in various environments to simulate real-world conditions.

AFMs “have applications in almost every nanotechnology field,” according to a report by Business Communications Co. (BBC), a Norwalk, Conn.-based technology analyst. BCC forecasts the AFM market, already at $200 million a year, will grow at about 22.4-percent annually through 2008.

MI has grown even faster: 25 and 35 percent, respectively, in each of the last two years, according to Nau. He attributes the growth to the introduction of the PicoPlus, the first “second-generation AFM.”

“The focus with the PicoPlus is ‘one system does it all,'” he said. “You would have to buy three or four AFMs [from other vendors] to match PicoPlus.” And AFMs, as a Fortune article recently noted, aren’t cheap, ranging in price from $100,000 for research systems to $2 million for systems designed for industrial use.

Lindsay and Tianwei Jing, Lindsay’s former research associate at ASU, founded MI in 1993. Today, Lindsay is the firm’s vice president of technology, and Jing is senior vice president of engineering. Lindsay still heads the Lindsay Lab at ASU’s physics department, as well.

The Lindsay Lab built its own microscopes until Digital Instruments introduced a commercial AFM in 1987. Although the microscopes were more reliable, Lindsay said researchers “had to work like hell to modify [Digital Instrument’s AFMs] to get them to do what we wanted them to do.”

When Jing came to ASU in 1992, he built an AFM that worked so well that other scientists asked him to build them one.

“His version of the microscope was so nice that it finally clicked that maybe we should be selling these things,” Lindsay said. Thus, MI was born with the licensing of the patent on Jing’s design from ASU. The company now has 40 patents in its inventory.

“Outside of [competitors] Veeco and Seiko, we’re probably the most prolific [in patents],” Nau said. “Our focus is innovation, developing new tools that might open up new markets and niches.”

Company

Molecular Imaging Corp.

Headquarters

4666 S. Ash Ave.

Tempe, Ariz. 85282

History

ASU Professors Stuart Lindsay and Tianwei Jing founded MI in 1993. The company manufactures AFM) and SPM systems designed for imaging in fluid or air, and appropriate for nanotechnology research applications in multiple areas. MI also develops software and data management tools.

In 1994, Gatan International acquired MI. Gatan and MI were then purchased by Roper Industries in 1996. On April 8, 2002, MI once again became an independent company as a result of a management-led buyout completed by Peacock and Hislop.

Industries potentially served

  • biomedical/life sciences

  • materials

Selected small tech-related products and services

  • PicoTREC Topography & RECognition AFM Imaging

  • PicoPlus SPM: a second-generation AFM with modular scanner and multi-user capabilities 

  • Pico LE SPM: available at a more affordable price, without full-featured functionality of other product offerings

Employees

20 to 49

Management

  • Vance Nau, president and chief executive officer

  • Stuart Lindsay, vice president of technology

  • Tianwei Jing, vice president of research and development

  • Sam Buffington, chief financial officer

  • Barbara Rice, marketing communications and public relations

Financials

Company revenues in 2003 leaped into the $5-$10-million range, up from the $1-$5-million range in 2002.

Selected strategic partners and customers

Selected competitors

Barriers to market

Like other manufacturers of industrial imaging equipment, MI executives are constantly working on ways of simplifying their products and make them part of a laboratory or research organization’s everyday routine. Cost is another barrier to expanding their market.

Relevant patents

Vibrating tip conducting probe microscope

Magnetically oscillated probe microscope for operation in liquids

Contact info

Research by Gretchen McNeely

Sept. 7, 2004 – Nokia Corp. has selected Kopin Corp.’s (Nasdaq: KOPN, Profile, News Web) CyberDisplay 180K for a new picture-viewing and storage device, according to a news release. The Kaleidoscope I, about the size of a saltshaker, uses infrared technology to receive images from a mobile phone or digital camera. The device can store up to 24 high-resolution digital images internally and up to 750 images using an external memory card.

The Kaleidoscope’s viewfinder contains CyberDisplay, which incorporates Taunton, Mass.-based Kopin’s “nanopocket” technology. The nanoscale divots collect electrons away from defects on light-emitting diodes, boosting light output.

Sept. 7, 2004 – Konarka Technologies (Profile, News, Web) announced Tuesday it has acquired Siemens AG’s organic photovoltaic research activities. Lowell, Mass.-based Konarka said the acquisition of the German corporation’s intellectual property and scientific team working on photovoltaics will accelerate its effort to commercialize affordable and efficient plastic power cells. Konarka intends to launch its first product by year’s end.

Konarka said the acquisition, whose terms were not disclosed, also increases the company’s presence in Europe and creates a base in Germany. The Siemens team will remain there and is expected to grow, the company said.

Christoph Brabec, who led Siemens’ scientific team, becomes Konarka’s director of polymer photovoltaic research. Thomas Grandke, head of the materials and microsystems department at Siemens Corporate Technology, will join Konarka’s Scientific Advisory Council. Ardesta LLC, the parent company of Small Times Media, is a Konarka investor.

These statistics are based on a quarterly member data collection program, in which suppliers report actual sales of components by segment and region. Membership in one of the vacuum associations is a prerequisite for participation (see list of members below), and reporting companies represent approximately 80 percent of the global supply basis for vacuum components and equipment sub-systems.

(September 7, 2004) Singapore and Fremont, Calif.&#8212STATS ChipPAC Ltd. announced that, on September 3, 2004, its indirect wholly owned subsidiary ChipPAC International Company Limited commenced a cash tender offer relating to any and all of ChipPAC International’s outstanding $165,000,000 aggregate principal amount of 12 3/4 percent Senior Subordinated Notes due 2009.

The SIA and other regional industry groups publicize sales statistics gathered by World Semiconductor Trade Statistics as three-month averages of monthly sales activity to smooth out variations caused by companies’ monthly financial calendars, which tend to inflate March, June, September and December sales figures.

(September 3, 2004) San Jose, Calif.&#8212The Working Group of the International Statistics on Vacuum Technology (ISVT) announced that global vacuum components and equipment sub-systems sales totaled $2.6 billion in 2003. The largest vacuum component market segment is semiconductor process vacuum with 38 percent, followed by industrial vacuum at 12 percent, process vacuum at 12 percent, instrumentation manufacturers at 11 percent and thin-film deposition (non-semiconductor) vacuum at 10 percent.

September 3, 2004 – The Working Group of the International Statistics on Vacuum Technology (ISVT) announced global vacuum components and equipment subsystems sales totalled $2.6 billion in 2003, reports SEMI.

The Working Group represents members of the Association of Vacuum Equipment Manufacturers International (AVEM), European Vacuum Technology Association (EVTA) and Japan Vacuum Industry Association (JVIA) in cooperation with SEMI.

The largest vacuum component market segment is semiconductor process vacuum with 38 percent, followed by industrial vacuum at 12 percent, process vacuum at 12 percent, instrumentation manufacturers at 11 percent and thin-film deposition (non-semiconductor) vacuum at 10 percent. The vacuum components market includes pumps and pumping packages, instrumentation, hardware including valves and couplings and after-sales including spare parts and service.

The statistics are based on a quarterly member data collection program, in which suppliers report actual sales of components by segment and region. Membership in one of the vacuum associations (AVEM, EVTA or JVIA) is a prerequisite for participation, and reporting companies represent approximately 80 percent of the global supply basis for vacuum components and equipment sub-systems.

Sept. 3, 2004 – A new microarray-based diagnostic test has been approved for sale in Europe, according to a news release. Switzerland-based Roche Diagnostics’  AmpliChip CYP450 Test has received the CE Mark, which certifies it has met health and safety requirements of European Union member states. The certification is necessary for products to be sold in Europe.

The AmpliChip, which is touted as the first chip-based test for broad diagnostic use, analyzes variations in two genes important in the metabolism of many widely prescribed drugs. Physicians can use the results for selecting drugs and individualizing treatment doses, the release said. The test combines Roche’s polymerase chain reaction amplification technology and Affymetrix Inc.’s (Nasdaq: AFFX, News, Web) microarray technology.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Affymetrix also announced it has received CE marking for its GeneChip System 3000Dx instrumentation, on which the AmpliChip is run. GeneChip also is available for diagnostic use in the European Union.

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Sept. 3, 2004 – As we approach the fall of 2004, let’s stop for a moment to assess the health and momentum of the nanotech industry and its state of maturity. As an emerging business arena, nanotechnology seems very healthy.

Every day, new application possibilities surface, more people enter nanotechnology as a pro-fession and discoveries are built on previously unique work. All momentum is positive and commercialization has accelerated. If this year is any model, next year should be amazingly productive and exciting.

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Many surprising developments will occur, and progress toward solving key application issues will be dramatic. Nanotechnology certainly is not mature; but it is entering its teenage years, those years characterized by ungainly and massive growth, increasing productivity and beginning wisdom.

The pulling of the Nanosys, Inc. IPO this summer was a good thing for nanotechnology, both short and long term. The marketplace (and not just Wall Street) showed that in our industry, having only prospects and intellectual property, without current products and sales (and profits) is neither accepteable or highly valued.

The pulling of the IPO also showed that a few early VC’s and investment funds couldn’t foist their folly on the public prematurely and in mystical multiples. Prematurely is the operative word here because eventually a growing and solid nanotech company should enter the public market and be highly valued. There is time for that.

A second lesson from the Nanosys non-IPO is that low, multiple, and early investors in germinal nanotech ventures must stay with their investments much longer. Investors need to add more funding until these ventures develop real value, or a modicum of maturity and presence in their markets, to justify those higher public multiples. These are good lessons to learn.

Nanotechnology is not the second coming of the dot.com era. My sense is that reality will dominate in nanotechnology assessment, at least in the short term. The nanotech industry has real technology creating real products with real sales in real markets, with a high cost of entry and true intellectual property protection. These are wonderfully positive assets.

Vaporware may not be able to crystallize in nanotech and that bodes well for the non-Nanosys companies that aren’t so hyped, giving them opportunity to prove through actual products and sales that they too should be highly valued. Yet, we are still early in the industry’s growth and Wall Street’s acceptance cycle.

What is so apparent today in the fall of 2004 is that the billions of dollars of government funds and corporate investment efforts worldwide (I emphasize worldwide, with two thirds of all in-vestments coming from outside of the U.S.) are beginning to show many tangible results. Monitoring the expanding number of discovery announcements shows us that exciting things are happening in nanotechnology.

Parallel efforts exist all over the world. Not only is one lab working to solve specific bottle-neck problems, many fully funded labs and companies are also racing to solve a myriad of impedimenta blocking the commercialization of nanotechnology in their specific industries, all at the same time. This parallel competitive development environment is very positive for the industry and is rapidly leading to breakthroughs, inventive products and a race to market those products commercially.

For example, in every market, one can identify the one or two technical or manufacturing bar-riers slowing down nanotech’s active exploitation or commercialization. Many of these are now beginning to fall because of the massive investment and parallel efforts.

A year ago, we had only one acceptable method for making useful quantities (tons) of single-walled carbon nanotubes. Now, there are four methods. All were announced within the last six months, half from outside of the U.S. A year ago, liquid could not be moved across a nanoarray. Now there is a proven methodology with more methods coming.

One year ago, nanobot movement was only modeled. Today, rudimentary nanobot movement has been performed using DNA segments and complements. Antibodies and proteins have been linked to nanotubes. Nanodots (quantum dots) are being manufactured in multiple locations and applied to identification and tracking uses that will shortly come to market, especially in the medical and pharmaceutical industries.

Patents are being nonexclusively sub-licensed throughout the nanotech industry to spur com-mercialization. Progress is tangible and specific.

Identifiable commercial applications of nanotechnology are in the final stages of testing for introduction as products next year. With these product introductions, private companies with a real presence in markets will surface, making next year, potentially, a good nanotech IPO year.

A word of caution: Not all is rosy.

We are still in the early development phase of the industry. We have yet to begin to create those designer molecules so often envisioned.

We have yet to show physically the self-assembly of designer molecules needed to mature the industry broadly.

We have yet to create new ways of implementing those major applications of nanotechnology that lead to disruptions of entire industry segments. We have yet to touch the toxicological, ethical and moral questions inherent in the application of nanotech in the world we live. All that is yet to come.

We are only in the enabler and integrator segments of market growth. There is much to ac-complish. We should all be pleased with the state of nanotech in the fall of 2004 and the speed with which developments and commercial applications are occurring. We should be even more pleased with the acceleration and momentum of the industry.

The economic stakes in nanotechnology are very high, billions of dollars in market after mar-ket. All the commercial opportunities are still available. There are no clear winners in any economic segment of nanotechnology now. This is a right place to be for the future.

The timetable for nanotechnology implementation, except possibly for those instances that in-clude FDA-approval requirements, is excessively long. Because of the massive amount of funding and worldwide competition, nanotechnology’s applications will occur far more rapidly and more broadly than predicted.

Stake out your positions now … next year may be too late.

Alan Shalleck is the publisher of the NanoClarity newsletter.