World News
09/01/2006
BUSINESS TRENDS
Midyear forecasts: 2006 bearish, 2007 bullish
A roundup of midyear forecast updates for semiconductor sales, equipment sales, and capital expenditures indicates general agreement that 2006 will shape up to be a boon year overall.
Most analysts expect strong sales of analog ICs this year thanks to demand for mobile phones, while the PC segment (desktops and notebooks) has been lackluster. Memory ICs (both flash and DRAM) are also robust. Outlooks for capital expenditures and equipment spending in 2006 have been hiked across the board, due to “tremendous” demand for tools, particularly in North America and Japan.
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However, the bullish growth prospects for 2006 are draining the optimism out of analysts’ 2007 projections. Most expect a peak to occur late this year or early 2007, with a slowdown in late 1Q or early 2Q07, as chipmakers digest the capacity being brought online. Also a factor: increasing price pressures for cell phones, memory, and processors.
WORLDWIDE HIGHLIGHTS
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has overturned a previous court ruling, finding that Rambus Inc. unlawfully monopolized markets for four computer memory technologies that were incorporated into industry standards for SDRAM and DDR SDRAM.
Flash memory giant SanDisk Corp., Milpitas, CA, has agreed to acquire Msystems Ltd., Kfar Saba, Israel, in an all-stock deal valued at up to $1.55 billion. Msystems’ x4 technology is designed to enable utilization of 4-bit/cell NAND flash.
A federal lawsuit has been filed on behalf of 34 US states, against the same group of international DRAM chipmakers-Micron, Infineon, Hynix, Samsung Electronics, Mosel-Vitelic, Nanya, Elpida, and NEC Electronics- as in a federal investigation into price-fixing allegations.
USA
Freescale Semiconductor Inc. says it has begun volume production of its 4Mbit MRAM devices, built at its 200mm fab in Chandler, AZ, using 0.18µm process technologies.
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) has agreed to acquire graphics chip firm ATI Technologies Inc. in a $5.4 billion cash-and-stock deal.
Intel Corp. and Micron Technology Inc., through their joint venture IM Flash, have started sampling 4Gbit NAND flash memory devices using 50nm process technologies, and plan to ramp to mass production within the next year.
ASIAFOCUS
Soitec has revealed plans to build a new €350 million, 300mm SOI facility to open in Singapore, boosting the company’s annual production capacity by nearly 40%. Production at Fab 3 is slated to start in mid-2008, and ramp over a two-year period to full capacity of 1 million wafers/year.
Toshiba and SanDisk have reportedly broken ground on their newest JV, Fab 4, in Yokkaichi, Japan, with investments expected to top $3.0 billion through the end of 2008. Initial NAND production is scheduled to begin by the end of 2007, starting at 67,500 wafers/month.
Cypress Semiconductor Corp. has shipped its first programmable system-on-chip (PSoC) mixed-signal arrays manufactured by China’s Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. The company plans to transfer its 0.13µm C8 process technology to the Chinese foundry in 3Q06 for use in low-power devices, with production starting by 2Q07.
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Siltronic AG have finalized plans to build a $1 billion, 300mm wafer fab in Singapore, with peak output of 300,000 wafers/month by 2010. Siltronic Samsung Wafer Pte. Ltd. is slated to open in mid-2008, with 300,000 wafers/month capacity by 2010.
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. and Renesas Technology Corp. say they have entered full integration testing of 45nm system-on-chip (SoC) manufacturing technology, to be used in mobile and networked consumer electronics products.
EUROFOCUS
Royal Philips Electronics has sold its semiconductor division to a consortium of equity firms for €8.3 billion (US $10.63 billion). The new standalone company will continue to focus on its four key markets: mobile/personal, home, automotive/identification, and multimarket semiconductors.
Carl Zeiss SMT has acquired all the shares of ALIS Corp., a developer of helium ion microscopy technology, from a group of financial backers and strategic investors. The new atomic-level helium ion microscopy technology reportedly provides substantially better resolution and faster image acquisition than conventional methods, and may allow probing to much finer dimensions than SEMs (see Tech News, p. 22).