Monthly Archives: September 2004

September 15, 2004 – Taking aim at the evolving requirements for lead-free semiconductor packages, IBM Corp. and Suss MicroTec AG have struck an alliance to commercialize IBM’s next-generation wafer solder-bump technology, called C4NP. In announcing the partnership on Sept. 13, the two companies said C4NP (controlled-collapse chip connection new process) is the first flip-chip technology to support 100% lead-free packaging with a combination of fine-pitch connections, low cost, and the flexibility to use “virtually all types of solder compositions.”

C4NP offers an alternative method for applying flip-chip solder to wafers compared to traditional photo stencil/screening, electroplating, and evaporative techniques. In the C4NP process, reusable glass molds are filled with molten solder and then applied to the wafers. After a reflow step, the glass mold is removed from the wafer, leaving solder bumps. That allows inspection of the molds before committing them to the wafers, to determine 100% good C4 connections–a very simple and hopefully high-yielding process, according to Joe Lisowski, IBM director of worldwide applications and packaging development in East Fishkill, NY.

Under the alliance, IBM’s systems and technology group will continue its research and optimization of C4NP techniques, while Munich-based Suss MicroTec will develop a complete line of 200mm and 300mm wafer tools for commercialization of the technology (IBM is finishing C4NP development for internal use). IBM will provide on-site process training to customers purchasing commercial systems from Suss. A pass-through license for C4NP technology will be included with the purchase of Suss equipment, which is scheduled to become available in 2H05.

Traditional screening or photo stencil techniques are relatively simple, but these approaches face limitations in handling fine-pitch contacts and large wafer sizes, according to IBM and Suss. Electroplating can produce fine-pitch contacts, but there are limits to lead-free alloys. Evaporative processes also fall short in making fine-pitch contacts, and costs become an issue with the introduction of new lead-free solder compositions, according to the companies.

“The C4NP process is simple, from a manufacturing standpoint. You can queue up the glass molds and have them wait for wafers,” explained IBM’s Lisowski. “There is rapid turnaround from the time holds are joined with wafers. The reflow time is short. The molds are cleaned and then ready to go again.” The process also gets rid of a lot of plating chemistries that have to be managed as waste, he added.

IBM and Suss said the C4NP process easily accommodates binary, ternary, and quaternary alloys, and minimizes the cost of consumables because only solder balls are created and transferred to the wafer without waste. The C4NP supports solder bumping of 200mm and 300mm wafers with similar efficiency, according to the two companies, which said the process has demonstrated technical capabilities exceeding requirements in the current International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors. — J. Robert Lineback, Senior Technical Editor

Alliance said it is fully committed to supporting the reduction of hazardous substances. It plans to implement a lead-free plating process and lead-free solder balls, as well as utilize green materials that are consistent with the company’s external assembly subcontractors.

(September 16, 2004) Taipei, Taiwan&#8212A taskforce will review whether to allow Taiwanese integrated circuits packaging and testing firms to invest in China, announced Ho Mei-yueh, Taiwan’s minister of economic affairs. The taskforce will consist of representatives from the industry, government and academia. No timeframe for a decision was given.

“Taiwan’s economy will keep growing if more value-added industries are established at home, before some mature manufacturing sectors move to China,” Mei-yueh said.

Separately, both Mei-yueh and Hu Sheng-cheng, chairman of Taiwan’s Council for Economic Planning and Development, said they are confident that Taiwan can achieve 5.87 percent economic growth in 2004. Private investments will contribute to this growth.

Accelrys to merge with SciTegic


September 15, 2004

Sept. 15, 2004 – A San Diego-based life sciences software firm will merge with a subsidiary of nanotech software firm Accelrys Inc. (Nasdaq: ACCL, Web), according to a news release. SciTegic this month will become a wholly owned subsidiary of San Diego-based Accelrys, pending customary closing conditions.

SciTegic shareholders will receive $12.25 million of cash and more than 1-million shares of Accelrys common stock in exchange for their SciTegic shares at closing, as well as additional Accelrys shares during the next two years if certain conditions are met. The transaction is valued at about $21.5 million, the release said.

Sept. 15, 2004 – In an online survey conducted this month, more than 80 percent of Americans were unable to name a single leading nanotech company, yet nearly the same percentage of respondents said that they believed that funding for research into nanoscale science and technology should be a government priority. The results reflect a favorable bias toward technology in general: Nearly 90 percent of respondents said they believed that continued U.S. global leadership in technology is important to the nation’s economy.

Chicago-based public relations firm Golin/Harris International conducted the survey with Albany, N.Y.-based Sawchuk Brown Associates and the Semiconductor Industry Association.

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Sept. 15, 2004 – Mention India and technology in the United States and Europe, and the response will likely include the words software services and outsourcing. But within India, nanotechnology is frequently taking a prominent role in presidential speeches.

India’s president, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, is promoting nanotechnology as the vehicle for increasing wealth and improving the quality of life in the impoverished nation of more than a billion people. An aeronautical engineer recognized for his work with launch vehicles and satellites, Kalam has been encouraging the scientific and education communities to embrace the opportunities nanotechnology offers.

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“Two technologies are unfurling for further investigation, development and application,” Kalam said from India during a joint India-United States videoconference on space. “One is the reusable technology with multiple launching capabilities and another is through nanotechnology.”

Kalam repeated the message in late July during an awards ceremony at the Indian Space Research Organization Satellite Center. “Nanotechnology is knocking at our doors,” he said. “It is the field of the future that will replace microelectronics and many fields with tremendous application potential in the areas of medicine, electronics and material science.”

In 2003, India’s Department of Science and Technology initiated a nanoscience research program that began to take shape this year. The agency earmarked about $400,000 for research equipment. The country is said to have allocated $26 million overall to nanotechnology recently.

The Indian Institute of Technology in Roorkee, Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research and universities in Madras, Pune and Benaras are among the top contenders for funding that could exceed $1 million this year.

The Times of India reported in late June that Kalam asked his administration to develop a plan for yet more nanotech funding. He is about midway through a five-year term in which he is stressing technology’s role as a catalyst for economic development and stability. He says his goal is to “transform India into a developed nation by 2020.”

In the meantime, he has continued to raise nanotechnology’s profile among children as well as adults. Addressing an audience of schoolchildren in a town outside Bangalore this summer, he predicted that fields such as nanoelectronics would dominate their future.

Mary Puma, CEO of Axcelis Technologies, and Tetsuro Higashi, chairman of Tokyo Electron, said they don’t believe the silicon cycle has peaked, adding that the current slowdown was a healthy sign to avoid overheating. Puma also pointed out that, in the past, semiconductor manufacturers bought equipment in “big lumps” but were now buying what they need when they need it.

(September 15, 2004) Santa Clara, Calif.&#8212Alliance Semiconductor Corporation announced that it will continue to move toward offering environmentally safe and lead-free compliant products across its entire product portfolio. The company shipped millions of devices over the course of 2003 in lead-free packaging as part of this effort.

Sept. 14, 2004 – Zyvex Corp. (News, Web) has signed a deal to supply Easton Sports with carbon nanotube-based additives for bicycle components. Easton’s Bicycle Division will feature Richardson, Texas-based Zyvex’s NanoSolve technology in many products in its 2005 line.

The company said the additives have helped them create lighter and stronger components, according to a news release. NanoSolve products, launched in May, are based on single-wall and multiwall carbon nanotubes. NanoSolve is designed to be integrated into existing materials and manufacturing setups.

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Sept. 14, 2004 – When Nanosys withdrew its initial public offering in early August, the debate over what its withdrawal meant was so loud and vociferous that it effectively drowned out the news that Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) Corp., a developer of organic molecules for display applications, had filed to go public just a few days earlier.

The Nanosys withdrawal and its causes suggest CDT will also have a tough time on the public markets. In addition, CDT’s public offering, which could have occurred by the time you read this, can retroactively tell us even more about the market encountered and ultimately eschewed by Nanosys. Nanosys has decided not to comment on its decision other than a press release citing “adverse market conditions.”

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Cambridge, England-based CDT is in many ways similar to Palo Alto, Calif.’s Nanosys. Like Nanosys, its key asset is an extensive portfolio of intellectual property covering materials and processing know-how, which it licenses to manufacturing partners to generate revenue.

Like Nanosys, it already has key relationships in place. And its technology is also widely considered potentially disruptive — in CDT’s case, for next-generation displays on everything from cell phones to big-screen TVs. And, like Nanosys, CDT is not yet profitable.

“They are in a funny position,” said Kimberly Allen, director of technology and strategic research at iSuppli/Stanford Resources, an El Segundo, Calif., market research firm that follows the display sector closely. “Commercialization is in the hands of their licensees and partners.” Ultimately, it may be that more vertically oriented, product-centric companies have the best model for today’s market.

CDT owns some of the key IP in the field of polymer organic light emitting diodes, or polymer OLEDs. But polymer OLED technology is just one route to next-generation displays. Manufacturers might license competing technology or develop their own type of OLED or other display device, leaving CDT and its IP portfolio out in the cold. For that and other reasons, Allen considers it as a high-risk investment.

Being similarly high risk hampered Nanosys, but not because there is never a market for such offerings. Risk tolerance comes and goes, but in August it appeared at a low. By Aug. 16, nine IPOs had already been withdrawn, according to Nasdaq.com, and seven were withdrawn in July, up from an average of 1.8 per month for the first six months of year.

As the markets fell, the market for higher risk issues fell more precipitously. For example, for the six months ending Aug. 20, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down about 5 percent and the Nasdaq about 10 percent. But the Punk Ziegel Nanotechnology Index was down 42 percent and the Merrill Lynch Nanotech Index, which launched April 1, was down 28 percent.

Meanwhile, the highest profile IPO of the year, Google, scaled back significantly as stock markets reeled in reaction to rising oil prices and other decidedly non-nano news.

“I think this (Nanosys’ withdrawal) is a statement about where the market is right now rather than about nanotechnology in general or Nanosys in particular,” said Lynn Foster, the emerging technologies director of Greenberg Traurig Consulting and a longtime nanotech industry observer.

“There are other companies making steady progress right now that will continue to gain traction and this won’t affect the timelines of their exit events,” he added, summarizing the views of many in the nanotech startup sector.

Now CDT will face the same scrutiny. It is one of just two companies — the other being Kodak — with a sizable portion of the patent pie surrounding OLED technology. Proponents are pushing the technology as the heir to the liquid crystal display, or LCD, most commonly used today in mobile phones, laptop computers and other consumer electronic devices.

Kodak, which discovered OLED technology in the early 1980s, uses a vapor-deposition process to build layers of OLED material onto a substrate. CDT suspends the OLEDs in a polymer solution that can be inkjet printed onto a substrate. As a result, says Allen, it can be used to make bigger displays like monitors and televisions.

But the company faces daunting challenges, not the least of which is the fact that, according to Allen, 98 percent of the product value currently on the market traces its roots to Kodak’s IP, not CDT’s. And, she says, even if you buy the idea that CDT’s portfolio deserves a premium for its future value when manufacturers build larger OLED devices like computer monitors and flat screen TVs, there’s no guarantee such devices will be OLED-based.

Add to that longevity issues. OLEDs degrade over time. Cell phones are the ideal proving ground for OLED technology because, among other reasons, consumers frequently upgrade to new phones. On the other hand, computer monitors and televisions are expected to function for years without a noticeable performance drop. CDT will have to significantly improve the lifetime of its displays for them to be viable in such markets, Allen says.

If CDT pulls off a successful IPO, it may be a sign that the market has become more risk tolerant or that investors are comforted by the fact that CDT’s manufacturing partners already have products on the market.

On the other hand, a withdrawn CDT offering or a poor performance would support the contention that the platform technology model is out of synch with the current stock market. It would suggest companies promoting the promise and potential of nanotech have less appeal than companies with new and better products tailored to a specific existing market, with scalable processes, solid relationships, and sustainable and growing revenues. If they also happen to be enabled by nanotech, so be it.

That was the approach taken by Immunicon Corp., which went public in April and raised $43 million in net proceeds. The company makes systems to collect and analyze rare cells from blood for cancer diagnostics and other purposes. It mentioned just once in its 122-page prospectus that its products use patented magnetic nanoparticles.

“Don’t try to sell your technology,” said Ed Erickson, chairman and chief executive. Instead, he advised, “Try to find some niche markets where you have specific leverage.”

The advice runs counter to the biotech boutique model and the platform play. In essence, Erickson maintains, companies should put the product horse before the platform cart, not the other way around.

By moving forward with a specific product in a proven market, he maintains, you prove your technology platform. You can branch out into other product markets later.

In a stock market skeptical of grandiose claims and high-risk ventures, the breakthrough nanotechnology IPO could be something as mundane as a market-focused diagnostics company. The breakthrough is that it presents a workable template for other nanotech-enabled startups to copy, and to go public despite an IPO market with a withering appetite for risk.

And in that sense, Immunicon might well have been the watershed nanotech IPO of 2004, precisely because it wasn’t a watershed at all.

September 10–Revised Recommended Practice is now available. The experts of IEST Working Group-CC006 have finished their revision of IEST-RP-CC006.3, Testing Cleanrooms. This updated edition of the document provides methods to assist planners, designers, manufacturers, and customers in preparing detailed specifications for cleanroom procurement and for assuring cleanroom operational compliance.

This Recommended Practice (RP) describes a set of recognized, standardized test procedures for determining cleanroom and clean zone performance. The principal purpose of performance testing is characterization of airborne particulate cleanliness in accordance with ISO 14644-1 Cleanrooms and associated controlled environments-Part 1: Classification of air cleanliness. Additional tests, such as those related to airflow characteristics, sources of particles, room pressurization, and environmental issues, provide a more complete characterization.

As part of the technology and licensing deal, SUSS MicroTec will develop a complete line of 300-mm and 200-mm equipment to enable commercialization of IBM’s C4NP (Controlled Collapse Chip Connection New Process), which is a flip chip technology offering the combined advantages of lead-free, high reliability, fine pitch, lower material cost, as well as the flexibility to use virtually all types of solder compositions. IBM will continue advanced research and process optimization of C4NP and offer on-site process training to customers who purchase commercial systems from SUSS.

(September 14, 2004) Taipei, Taiwan&#8212The semiconductor equipment market is taking a “temporary pause,” but is still “fundamentally strong,” according to yesterday’s speakers at SEMICON Taiwan 2004. Prominent leaders in the semiconductor equipment industry participated in a panel discussion on the opening day of the conference.