(April 24, 2008) San Jose, CA — After a brief surge in February, when the book-to-bill ratio for North American semiconductor equipment reached .92, it has slipped back to 0.89 for March 2008, the same average as January, 2008. On the bright side, total billings for March — 1.29B — was only 1% lower than February’s 1.31B, and slightly more than January’s billings of 1.28B.
Category Archives: Materials and Equipment
by Debra Vogler, Senior Technical Editor, Solid State Technology
April 23, 2008 – SEMI is set to release results of a yearlong study commissioned at the behest of its board of directors: “Intellectual Property (IP) Challenges and Concerns of the Semiconductor Equipment and Materials Industry.” Undertaken by the Noblemen Group, the report provides details of the real-world challenges SEMI’s member companies have experienced protecting their IP.
Of the 85 companies that were targeted by the study, a little more than half (49) participated, representing a similar share (56.3%) of the equipment/material industry’s total annual sales of ~$78B in 2006. Almost 90% of the participating companies report that they have experienced some form of IP violation, including infringement, counterfeiting, and theft of core technologies, core products, spare parts and components, trade secrets, and trademarks (see Figure 1).
Fig. 1. Types and degrees of IP violations: “Somewhat serious” to “Extremely serious.” (Source: SEMI)
The ongoing issue of IP protection has become a much higher priority for SEMI’s members lately due to escalating R&D costs and an intense need for a return on that investment, Vicki Hadfield, president of SEMI North America, told WaferNEWS. “This issue imperils innovation in the industry,” she said. “Remedies will require a very strong dialog at all levels within the industry,” she noted, involving collaboration between customers and suppliers, suppliers and the respective government regions, and between suppliers themselves.
According to the report, equipment and materials suppliers typically invest ~10%-15% of annual sales into R&D, and these firms are increasingly carrying a heavier burden of the industry’s R&D needs. The report also notes that equipment and materials companies headquartered in North America, Japan, and Europe source 95% of all global semiconductor equipment and materials produced — so it’s not surprising that companies in these regions own a large portion of IP.
The study’s participants identify Taiwan, China, Korea, and North America as the regions of greatest concern with respect to IP violations, although reasons for the concern varied by region (see Figure 2). North America, though recognized as having strong legal protection of IP rights, is cited by respondents for a tendency toward lengthy litigation — particularly in key areas including patent validity, weak IP, trade secret theft (often by former employees), and unintentional infringement — coupled with this region being a “hotbed of innovation.”
Fig. 2. Percent of respondents expressing “Serious to Very serious” concerns about each region. (Source: SEMI)
Perhaps the most confounding aspect of IP protection facing SEMI’s membership is reluctance among members to challenge those who engage in the various ways IP is compromised. Roughly 53% of the companies participating in the study report that they experienced IP violations by their customers, the chipmakers. The report also notes that there appears to be a close link between IP violations in Asia and customer violations. Compounding the problem is a prevailing view that suppliers will not take legal action against customers for fear of antagonizing them and losing sales.
Among the practices of chipmakers that contribute to IP violations: providing product details, parts specifications, and pricing information to third-party companies to encourage providing infringing spare parts and assemblies; providing equipment and product access to competitors; and passing along process parameters and process performance details to competitors. Even joint development projects are cited as leading to IP violations.
However distasteful taking action against IP violators might be, the economic impact is real, though the report only offers order of magnitude estimates (not actual data) on economic losses to the semiconductor equipment and materials industries. According to the study, in aggregate, industry revenue losses due to IP violations could be ~$2B-$4B/year. Based on a sampling of equipment and materials industry statistics, with average sales of ~$396K/employee, each 1% loss in industry annual sales (~$78B in 2006) would correspond to 1970 lost jobs.
Recognizing that many IP-related disputes arise among the members of SEMI, one of the report’s recommendations is for IP management education among that group — and to that end, SEMI has been developing and offering pragmatic IP management training. “We’ve already held a course in San Jose in October of 2007 and we’ve held several symposia in Europe, in Korea, and other regions,” said Hadfield. “We’re going to build those into content on IP best practices we can use around the world.”
Educating governments is also key. “One of the issues that any developing country faces is that it won’t be a place that attracts a lot of foreign investment and R&D expenditures if it doesn’t have a strong IP framework,” she said. — D.V.
April 23, 2008 — PowerMetal Technologies Inc., supplier of nanotechnology enhanced materials to the sporting goods and consumer products industries, announced that PGA Tour professional Trevor Immelman won the 2008 Masters using its EPIC shaft, a golf shaft designed in conjunction with Grafalloy to enable golfers to hit longer and straighter golf shots thanks to its proprietary nanofuse construction.
“Key to Immelman’s convincing wire-to-wire victory was his long and straight drives at a golf course known for its stingy scoring conditions,” the company says. “Wielding EPIC golf shafts in his driver, fairway wood and hybrid, the South African drove the ball beautifully, he led in driving accuracy with a tournament-best 85% of fairways hit. He also finished fourth in driving distance with a blistering 287 yards off the tee.”
“The greatest strength of the week for him was his driving,” said CBS commentator Jim Nantz as Immelman was walking up the famed 18th. Fellow CBS commentator and Masters Champion Nick Faldo added, “His cumulative of driving distance and accuracy, he will beat everybody by miles and that has been his absolute number one club this week.”
“We are delighted that our technology and product was the key to winning on golf’s biggest stage,” said Edward Hughes, Founder, President & CEO of PowerMetal Technologies. “PowerMetal’s nanotechnology powers not only golfers but also is used by the world’s top players in squash and racquetball. It is very exciting to see players win using our nanotechnology at Majors in golf and at World Championships in racquet sports.”
The EPIC Shaft was first introduced to the golf world at the beginning of 2007 and Golfweek magazine has called it “the next big thing.” According to PowerMetal, what makes the EPIC’s performance so powerful is its proprietary and patented nanofuse technology, combining the benefits of steel with the lightweight and feel advantages of graphite. In a case of good timing, PowerMetal’s patent on the Epic shaft was approved and issued by the US patent Office two days before the Masters tournament started.
PowerMetal has several key nanotechnology platforms that it is using to create both sporting goods and consumer products. Its nanofusing on composite platforms such as the Epic Shaft and HEAD Metallix racquets has received industry praise, and its nanofusing on aluminum for golf heads and baseball bats will result in several products new products in 2008. In a recently announced strategic alliance with DuPont, its nanofusing on polymers hold promise in the both the sporting goods and consumer products markets. At grain sizes of 20 nanometers (1000 times smaller than the grain size of typical metallic structures), the nano-crystalline metal is much stronger and harder than conventional metals.
April 22, 2008 — Angstron Materials LLC says it is the first advanced materials company to offer large quantities of single atomic layer thick nano-graphene platelets (NGPs). The carbon-based NGPs aim to be cost-effective, high-quality alternatives to nanotubes.
Angstron claims that NGPs outperform all other nanomaterials on the market: They demonstrate the highest thermal conductivity known today — five times that of copper — a capability that provides faster thermal dissipation; plus electrical conductivity similar to copper with a density four times lower — for lighter weight components. And, says Angstron, NGPs are 50 times stronger than steel with a surface area twice that of carbon nanotubes.
Angstron offers oxide-free, pristine NGP products in thicknesses ranging from 0.34 to 100 nanometers and widths of 0.5-20 microns. Exceptionally high length-to-thickness aspect ratios of up to 10,000 are available. In addition, the company can modify the chemistry of the nano-platelet surface to fine-tune electrical, thermal, mechanical, optical, magnetic, chemical and other key performance properties while maintaining precision control of platelet dimensions and other physical parameters.
Angstron’s engineered NPGs are available in several forms including raw materials and solutions. These solutions promise an exceptionally high loading and uniform dispersion without degrading viscosity. The NGPs can be blended with other nanomaterials to achieve higher loadings required for various forms of composite lamina as well as nanocomposites for load-bearing and functional applications.
Angstron can also tailor nanomaterial products to customers’ manufacturing processes, enhanced materials or device needs. The advanced materials specialist offers customers a total turnkey solution from application development and pilot quantities for test articles to scale-up for required production volumes. Angstron is currently working with companies to develop products for batteries, fuel cells, supercapacitors, light weight structural components as well as electromagnetic interference (EMI), radio magnetic indicator (RMI), electrostatic discharge (ESD), lightning strike and composite applications.
(April 22, 2008) Cham, Switzerland — For the fifth consecutive year, Oerlikon Esec was recognized by Infineon Technologies, Sdn. Bhd; but for the first time, the company received awards in both Best Performer and Best Supplier catgories for 2006/07. The two companies have been working together on the realization and implementation of a copper wire bonding project.
Apr. 18, 2008 – Even the quarterly-ending month couldn’t muster enough strength to give the industry a positive boost, as demand continues to show softness in the semiconductor equipment sector, according to the latest data from SEMI.
The group says March tool bookings in North America were about $1.16B, -4.0% lower than February and -18.5% lower than a year ago. Orders returned to the trend of ~-20% Y-Y declines seen through most of 2H07 and into January 2008, and now represent a tenth consecutive month of double-digit growth declines.
Sales of roughly $1.29B declined about -1.3% M-M and -9.9% Y-Y. On a M-M comparison they slipped back to a small single-digit decline, roughly where they’ve been since last June. Y-Y sales growth has now been in the red for eight months, and the ~10% Y-Y decline is the second-highest since last summer.
The bigger slump in orders means the book-to-bill ratio (B:B), which had risen for five straight months, fell back to 0.89, meaning $89 worth of orders were received for every $100 worth of product billed for the month.
In a statement, SEMI’s Dan Tracy, senior director of Industry Research and Statistics, noted that orders have stayed generally at constant levels for the past six months, “a reflection of the uncertainty in the semiconductor industry and with current economic conditions.”
The soft numbers from March come despite the fact that SEMI tweaked down its original projections for February, which actually made the M-M declines less pronounced (bookings would have been -5.8% instead of -4%). The group shaved about $5.2B from Feb. billings, which translated into about 0.3% less growth both M-M and Y-Y. Bookings were cut by $23.5M, which took about 2% off the month’s M-M/Y-Y growth, and lowered the Feb. B:B by a point to 0.92.
April 18, 2008 — University of Pittsburgh researchers have discovered that certain organic (carbon-based) molecules exhibit the properties of atoms under certain circumstances and, in turn, conduct electricity as well as metal. Detailed in today’s edition of Science, the nanotechnology discovery provides a new strategy for designing electronic materials, including inexpensive and multifunctional organic conductors that have long been considered the key to smaller, cheaper, and faster technologies.
The University of Pittsburgh‘s strength in nanoscience is in the study of nanostructures at the core, “essentially nano” level. The Pitt team found that the hollow, soccer-ball shaped carbon molecules known as fullerenes can hold and transfer an electrical charge much like the most highly conductive atoms, says project head Hrvoje Petek, a professor of physics and chemistry in Pitt’s School of Arts and Sciences and codirector of Pitt’s Petersen Institute for NanoScience and Engineering (PINSE). The research was performed by Pitt post-doctoral associates Min Feng and Jin Zhao.
When an electron was introduced into a fullerene molecule, the shape of the electron distribution mimicked that of a hydrogen atom or an atom from the alkali metal group, which includes lithium, sodium, and potassium. Moreover, when two fullerenes were placed next to each other on a copper surface, they showed the electron distribution of their chemical bond and appeared as H2, a hydrogen molecule. The assembly exhibited metal-like conductivity when the team extended it to a wire 1-molecule-wide.
“Our work provides a new perspective on what determines the electronic properties of materials,” Petek said. “The realization that hollow molecules can have metal-like conductivity opens the way to develop novel materials with electronic and chemical properties that can be tailored by shape and size.”
Although the team worked with fullerenes, the team’s results apply to all hollow molecules, Petek added, including carbon nanotubes—rolled, 1-atom thick sheets of graphite 100,000 times smaller than a human hair.
The team’s research shows promise for the future of electronics based on molecular conductors. These molecule-based devices surpass the semiconductor and metal conductors of today in terms of low cost, flexibility, and the ability to meld the speed and power of optics and electronics. Plus, unlike such inorganic conductors as silicon, molecule-based electronics can be miniaturized to a 1-dimensional scale (1-molecule-wide), which may enable them to conduct electricity with minimal loss and thus improve the performance of an electronic device.
Traditionally, the problem has been that organic conductors have not conducted electrical current very well, Petek said. The Pitt team’s discovery could enable scientists to finally overcome that problem, he said.
“Metal-like behavior in a molecular material—as we have found—is highly surprising and desirable,” he said.
(April 16, 2008) Migdal Ha’Emek, ISRAEL — Jordan Valley Semiconductors LTD, a provider of semiconductor metrology solutions, has acquired the business of Bede, effective Monday April 14th. Bede is a supplier of high-resolution XRD (HRXRD) metrology for the semiconductor and compound industries with revenues of $11.6M in 2007. Bede entered into the UK’s Administration phase, their equivalent of Chapter 11, on March 31.
Jordan Valley’ s metrology tools are designed for thin films based on novel, rapid, non-contacting, and non-destructive x-ray technologies including X-ray reflectivity (XRR), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), and small angle X-ray acattering (SAXS) technologies.
Apr. 11, 2008 – UK-based Oxford Instruments says it has acquired Silver Spring, MD-based Technologies and Devices International, a developer of hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE) technology and processes (described as an alternative to metal-organic chemical vapor deposition [MOCVD] techniques), for $1M in cash, plus future considerations based on tool sales by July 2012 that could boost the deal to $6M (Oxford also will assume $2.2M of TDI debt). TDI will remain at its US facility and expand R&D efforts, and will still be led by president Tatiana Dmitriev and R&D head Alexander Usikov.
The impetus of the deal is growth in the high-brightness LED manufacturing market, which are ~10x more efficient than tungsten bulbs and 2x as efficient as compact fluorescent lighting in domestic and commercial lighting. The firm cited analyst predictions of 20% CAGR for the HB-LED market through 2012.
The deal helps Oxford expand its HB-LED offerings to the epitaxy sector, complementing its Plasmalab range of etch and deposition tools. The company noted in a statement that its tools cover three of the nine HB-LED manufacturing steps, but adding TDI helps address this fourth step “that has historically been the most time consuming and costly,” with tools that enable HB-LED suppliers to cut manufacturing times by 25%.
On the books, the TDI acquisition also supports Oxford’s plan to double the size of its Plasma Technology group over five years and add 10 percentage points to EBIT margins, noted CEO Jonathan Flint, in a statement.
TDI posted a pretax net loss of $0.8M for the 12 months ended June 2007, vs. $1.0M in gross assets. Losses are expected to continue through the next year while tools are developed, but the acquisition should be “earnings enhancing” in the second year.
Apr. 11, 2008 – Elpida memory expects a ¥20B (US $197.7M) group operating loss for the just-ended fiscal year, vs. a ¥68.4B ($676.0B) profit in the prior year, the company’s first such loss since its market listing in late 2004, notes the Nikkei daily. Sales are expected to have declined about 18% to ¥400B ($3.95B), with higher volumes unable to offset falling unit prices.
Still, the paper notes, Elpida probably isn’t feeling as much pain as others in the market, where >$1 ASPs are far below breakeven prices ($2-$2.50) for mainline product. The company has better a better manufacturing cost structure because DRAMs are all made at its cutting edge facilities, as of earlier this year — Qimonda, on the other hand, is “saddled with old facilities” and posted a 4Q07 operating loss exceeding sales, the paper notes. And smaller players are being pressed to change by the tight market conditions, the Nikkei noted — e.g. Taiwan’s Nanya is switching its alliance from Qimonda to joint production with Micron.
Meanwhile, Tokyo Electron Ltd.’s groupwide orders in fiscal 4Q08 for semiconductor equipment were their lowest level in nearly three years, at ¥100B ($988.4B), down 29% vs. the prior quarter and more than 50% vs. a year earlier, due to investment hesitation by Asian chipmakers, noted the Nikkei daily. Though the company appears to have posted a record profit for the just-finished fiscal year, it’s faced with declining sales and profits in the new fiscal year, as DRAM makers become reluctant to invest in capacity, and NAND chip demand isn’t strong enough to offset that decline.
The company’s LCD equipment business is doing well, though, with record fiscal 4Q08 orders of ¥~60B ($593.0M). That softened the blow for total companywide orders, which were down 19% Q-Q to ¥160B ($1.58B).