March 3, 2010 – Intel has given its nod to two dozen key partners from its roster of thousands of supply-chain contributors as the 2009 winners of its awards for Preferred Quality Supplier (PQS) and Supplier Continuous Quality Improvement (SCQI).
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| (Image of statue from Intel.com) |
To earn Intel’s top award, its "Supplier Continuous Quality Improvement" (SCQI) award — now in its 23rd year — 10 honorees (down from 16 in 2008) scored at least 95% on a list of performance and ability goals, including cost, quality, availability, delivery, technology, and responsiveness, over the past year. They also achieved ≥90% on an improvement plan and "demonstrated solid quality and business systems."
"These 10 suppliers were industry role models during the rapidly changing business environment of 2009," noted Brian Krzanich, SVP/GM of Intel’s manufacturing and supply chain, in a statement.
Another 16 suppliers (down from 26 in 2008) scored 80% or better to earn Intel’s 2009 "Preferred Quality Supplier" (PQS) recognition. All winners must also adhere to a "challenging" improvement plan and a quality/business systems assessment, and comply with the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition Code of Conduct and Intel’s own Environmental Social Governance program
One interesting tidbit from the listings: Intel now recognizes two lithography suppliers as PQS winners: incumbent litho tool supplier Nikon (which was a SCQI winner in 2008) and new recipient ASML. This, after an industry analyst recently suggested that ASML has won work in at least two layers with Intel’s 22nm work for now divided between the two platforms — shifting the balance of business within Intel to a 40%/60% split.
Intel launched the SCQI program in 1987 to improve the systems and output of key suppliers, in an effort to minimize the amount of time and money spent inspecting incoming material, goods, and services purchased. The company honored 40 companies in 2008, 48 suppliers in 2007, 54 suppliers in 2006, 38 in 2005, 43 in 2004, 45 companies in 2003, and 42 companies in 2002.
The 2009 SCQI winners are:
– * Daewon Semiconductor Packaging (injection molded trays)
– * DEK International (solder paste, flux printing machines)
– * Disco (precision cutting, grinding, polishing equipment)
– * Hitachi High-Technologies (etchers, FE-SEMs, CD-SEM, defect inspection tools)
– * Hitachi Kokusai Electric (diffusion furnaces)
– * Moses Lake Industries/TAMA Chemicals (ultrahigh-purity process and performance chemicals)
– * Munters (VOC abatement equipment)
– ** Senju Metal Industry (surface mount materials)
– * SUMCO (200mm and 300mm polished and test silicon wafers)
– ** Verizon Business (global communications)
Winners of the 2009 PQS award include:
– ** AceCo Precision Manufacturing (factory spares and refurbishment)
– Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (turnkey packaging and test services)
– ASML (lithography process tools)
– Cabot Microelectronics (CMP slurries)
– ** Cisco Systems (networking hardware infrastructure, IP telephony, enterprise collaboration)
– DAIFUKU (fab automated material handling systems)
– ** FUJIFILM Electronic Materials (chemistry, equipment for semiconductor device manufacturing)
– Grohmann Engineering (assembly capital equipment and engineering support)
– Hirata (material handling tools)
– * Nikon (lithography scanners)
– * Nippon Mining & Metals (sputtering targets for physical vapor deposition)
– Nordson ASYMTEK (dispense equipment)
– ** Praxair Electronics (electronic process and bulk gases, sputtering targets, spare parts management)
– ** Rofin-Baasel (laser mark equipment)
– ** Skanska (construction management)
– * Tokyo Electron (semiconductor production equipment)
(* a 2008 SQCI winner)
(** a 2008 PQS winner)