News
02/01/2003
China
The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, and American Witco Co. will jointly build the Witco China Nano Technology R&D Center. The center, which will be open to students and researchers, will be made up of Chinese scientists and engineers and equipped with Witco's latest nano products.
Kulicke & Soffa Industries Inc., Willow Grove, PA, has started shipments of wirebonding tools to customers from its newest production facility in Suzhou, China. The company's first China-based manufacturing operation was announced in May 2002, and first customer orders are being initiated during 1Q03.
Japan
Sony Corp., Tokyo, will close its only manufacturing plant in Indonesia. Sony has cut the number of its manufacturing plants worldwide from 70 to 54 since March 1999.
Also, Nichia Corp., Tokyo, and Sony have reached a basic agreement in which they will jointly develop blue-violet laser diodes, in mass-production level, for use in optical disc recording and playback by spring 2003. The companies have also reached a basic agreement to share technologies, patents, and know-how.
Japan's electronic materials suppliers are planning to form a consortium to develop next-generation products more quickly and at lower cost. Sumitomo Bakelite, Hitachi Chemical, JSR, Toray, Tokyo Ohka, Fuji Photo Film, Sumitomo Chemical, and Nitto Denko will invest about $160 million (¥20 billion) to jointly develop new materials for the 70nm node and below, starting this month, according to Japanese press reports. A first focus is likely to be polishing materials.
JSR Corp.'s Yokkaichi manufacturing facility for CMP polishing pads was completed last year, and is expected to be fully commercialized in 2003. The plant's initial capacity will be 40,000 pads/year, with room for future expansion.
Who're likely to be the leaders in nanotechnology in Japan? So far NEC, Hitachi, and the trading companies, Mitsui & Co. and Mitsubishi Corp., are filling that role, according to a recent industry survey by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun. The trading companies are establishing subsidiaries making carbon nanotubes and other materials. Also highly rated for their technology in the new field are government labs, with more than 400 researchers on six major projects, and the University of Osaka and the University of Kyoto. Leaders in patents held in the field were Hitachi, Matsushita, Toshiba, and Fujitsu, though 16 different companies held more than 100 patents each.
Hitachi Ltd. and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. will merge their domestic semiconductor sales subsidiaries into a new company in April. This announcement follows a basic agreement to create a joint venture, Renesas Technology Corp., on April 1 by merging most of their chip operations. The companies have signed a contract to establish the joint venture with capital of ¥50 billion.
Hitachi and Mitsubishi also plan to consolidate their overseas sales bases in the US, Europe, and Asia in 1H03.
Taiwan
ChipMOS Technologies Inc., Taipei, will acquire a <40% direct stake in ThaiLin Semiconductor Corp., a semiconductor testing services company. ChipMOS Taiwan will pay NT$668.4 million for the stake by taking all of a private placement of 83,550,000 shares issued by ThaiLin at NT$8.0/share, representing 41% of the total outstanding shares. The transaction was expected to close in 4Q02.
On the cover:
 |
Golden Buddha, Guangzhou, China.