World News
06/01/2003
BUSINESS TRENDS
March sees increase in chip sales, orders, capacity
Worldwide semiconductor sales climbed to $12.1 billion in March, a 2.6% sequential increase from the $11.8 billion in revenue reported in February. For 1Q03, industry sales were $36.4 billion, a 3.2% sequential decline from 4Q02 and a 13% increase from the $32.19 billion in industry revenue reported in 1Q02, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) reported.
"A number of the products that were weak in February reversed course, showing renewed demand in March," stated SIA president George Scalise. "The sequential revenue increase we recorded in March, and the 13% year-over-year revenue gain for the first quarter, under trying global geopolitical conditions, demonstrates once again the resilience and strength of this industry. We continue to expect double-digit growth for 2003," Scalise continued, "led by continuing increases in consumer purchases of PCs, an anticipated corporate PC upgrade cycle later in the year, and a strong global wireless sector. The emerging Wi-Fi sector will add strength to the market as new products are introduced during the year."
Among product gains in March, MPUs sold into computers rose by 5.9%; digital signal processors (DSPs) and flash memory used in cell phones were up 2%; and optoelectronics were up 7.7%.
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North American-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $823 million in orders in March and a book-to-bill ratio of 0.99, according to a recent Express Report published by Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (Semi). The bookings figure is 8% above the revised February level of $761 million and 2% below the $836 million in orders posted in March 2002.
Frontend capacity utilization totaled 81.5% in March, up from the revised 75.6% in February, according to VLSI Research Inc.'s Industry Pulse Pro. That number is projected to rise to 83.0% in April and 83.69% in May, according to VLSI.
WORLDWIDE HIGHLIGHTS
Strategic Marketing Associates (SMA) data indicate that new equipment spending will rise slowly until 4Q03, when it is expected that double-digit growth will return to the industry.
The projected growth is due to an increase in the number of 90nm-capable fabs in production. The number is expected to rise from four in 1Q03 to almost 50 by mid-2004. SMA also estimates that spending for 300mm equipment will double, helped along by 15 new 300mm fabs coming online by mid-2004.
As more 300mm fabs start construction, spending will begin to grow by 4Q03, and by early next year, reach its highest level since 2001. Approximately nine new 300mm fabs will start construction between now and 2Q04, SMA said.
Part of the increase in fab construction spending is due to the growing presence of China in the foundry business, where there are more new fabs under construction and more construction spending than in any other region of the world.
Semi has eliminated 20 staff positions at its North America region operations. It now employs 129 people in North America, which includes global operations staff at its headquarters in San Jose, CA. Since the beginning of 2002, the association's global headcount has been reduced 11% to 202 employees.
USA
Applied Materials Inc., Santa Clara, CA, has acquired Boxer Cross Inc. for an undisclosed amount. In other Applied news, the company has been granted US patent No. 6,537,133, a method for in situ endpoint detection for CMP. The optical endpoint methodology is used in sub-130nm CMP processing.
Akrion, Allentown, PA, has received US patent No. 6,532,974 for Megazone, a cleaning system designed to enhance the company's GAMA automated wet stations.
Keithley Instruments Inc., Cleveland, OH, and Novellus Systems Inc., San Jose, CA, are collaborating to develop electrical process diagnostic tests for copper and low-k integration. The tests will be based on Keithley's S600 automatic DC parametric test platform.
Fremont, CA-based Asyst Technologies Inc. and Mattson Technology Inc. have penned an alliance to integrate Asyst's next-generation unified atmospheric equipment front-end with Mattson's 300mm RTP equipment. The integrated solution will offer chip manufacturers more cleanroom space, lower CoO, and increased wafer throughput.
Cypress Semiconductor Corp., San Jose, CA, and Micron Technology Inc., Boise, ID, have signed a sales and purchase agreement in which Micron will transfer its communications-oriented synchronous SRAM product inventory to Cyrpess. Micron has recently decided to phase out production of synchronous SRAM products.
August Technology Corp., Minneapolis, MN, has completed the purchase of Semiconductor Technologies and Instruments Inc. (STI), Plano, TX. STI was formerly a business unit of Texas Instruments Dallas.
ASIAFOCUS
China
Air Products, Lehigh Valley, PA, has signed an exclusive multiyear agreement to supply its ultrahigh purity White Ammonia product, as well as other electronic specialty gases, to Shanghai LanBao Photoelectric Materials Co. Ltd. Additionally, Air Products will install its new GASGUARD high-flow system at Shanghai LanBao's production facility in Songjian, Shanghai.
MEMSIC Inc., Andover, MA, has purchased eight acres in Wuxi, China, for the creation of a new 43,000 ft2 manufacturing facility, which will be fully operational and qualified by ISO standards before the end of 2003. MEMSIC has invested $3 million in this facility, which includes a Class 100 cleanroom for the MEMS-manufacturing process and a frontend process pilot line.
Japan
Ten Japanese semiconductor materials suppliers — Fuji Film, Hitachi Chemical, JSR, Nitto Denko, Nissan Chemical, Sekisui Chemical, Sumitomo Chemical, Sumitomo Bakelite, Tokyo Ohka, and Toray — will build joint test facilities and design common test structures to cut the cost of developing next-generation materials by sharing basic infrastructure.
CASMAT, or the Consortium for Advanced Semiconductor Materials and Related Technologies, will focus on processing, integrating, and evaluating 65nm geometries on 300mm wafers, especially in back-end-of-line areas such as low-k materials, planarizing technologies, resists, buffer coatings, and wafer-level packaging.
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Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD), Sunyvale, CA, and Fujitsu Ltd. will form a new flash memory company. FASL LLC will replace the two firms' 50-50 joint venture in Japan, Fujitsu-AMD Semiconductor Ltd. AMD will own 60% of the new company, Fujitsu the remaining 40%. FASL LLC will begin operating at the beginning of 3Q, pending US Federal Trade Commission and European Union regulatory approval, and completion of due diligence.
Toppan Printing will ship the first e-beam photomasks to Selete for use in evaluating Nikon's e-beam tool starting this month. These masks are 200mm in diameter, a jump up from the earlier 100mm models, with a network of some 8000 1mm2 subfields. Tool and masks are aimed at 65nm production, extending to 32nm. Toppan will also begin shipping evaluation samples to companies in the Selete program midyear.
Sumitomo Electric is starting production of 2-in. gallium nitride wafers at the rate of 200 wafers/month, and plans to ramp to 500/month by October, for making blue-violet lasers to read next-generation optical disks. Most of these short wavelength lasers are now made on GaN epitaxial layers grown on sapphire substrates, but the mismatched materials produce a relatively high number of defects. Sumitomo has a system for producing regularly spaced low-defect areas on its GaN epi layer grown on a GaN substrate, where it says defects are reduced to 105/cm2, significantly better than GaN on sapphire.
Taiwan
Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc. (ASE), Taipei, has completed development of electroplated wafer-bumping technology on 200mm wafers, and has begun a pilot run at its Kaohsiung manufacturing facility. In the initial phase of volume production, ASE is setting a monthly capacity of 10,000 pieces.
Four of Taiwan's memory chipmakers, Nanya Technology Corp., Winbond Electronics Corp., Powerchip Semiconductor Corp., and Mosel Vitelic Inc., will ask the local government to investigate subsidies South Korea is allegedly providing to Hynix Semiconductor Inc. that have damaged their businesses. A negative ruling by the Taiwan government could deal a serious blow to Hynix by keeping its products out of the world's largest spot market for DRAM. It may also prompt other governments to follow suit and impose tariffs on the company's DRAM in order to protect their own chip firms. Hynix has already been hurt by a US decision to slap a 57% tariff on Hynix-made DRAM imported into the country.
EUROFOCUS
Infineon Technologies AG, Munich, will cut about 900 jobs, or almost 3% of its work force, over the next few months. The chipmaker said it would shed 500 positions in administration and 150 jobs in its cell phone parts division, mostly in Sweden. Outsourcing and consolidating some other operations would eliminate 250 more jobs, it said. The company will try to save ¤500 million ($550 million) through the measures.
STMicroelectronics NV (ST), Geneva, Switzerland, has teamed with Hynix Semiconductor, Seoul, Korea, to jointly develop NAND flash products marketed by both companies. ST and Hynix will introduce a NAND product portfolio in 2H03.
In other news, ST will buy Proton World International for about $39.4 million from Australia-based ERG Ltd. The deal, which is expected to close in 2Q03, will increase ST's smart card system expertise, particularly in banking and financial fields, the company said.
SUSS MicroTec and Danish Electronics, Light & Acoustics (DELTA) have launched MEMUNITY, a forum designed to provide information on MEMS test topics. MEMUNITY will partner with companies for the development of MEMS test equipment, including pressure sensors and accelerometers, RF MEMS for wireless communication, silicon microphones, and gyros.
Soitec, Bernin, France, has acquired assets of the French epitaxial wafer supplier Picogiga. The Soitec-Picogiga business will become a division of Soitec concentrated on the development and manufacture of compound semiconductor products.