World News
03/01/2000
Worldwide Hightlights
SIA says chip sales surge
For the third consecutive month, semiconductor sales broke records, reaching $14.7 billion in December and ending the year with a new annual sales record of $149 billion.
December's worldwide sales reached $14.7 billion, a 3.3% increase over November and a 30.0% hike over December 1998, said the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) in its latest global sales report. Total year sales were up 18.9% from last year.
The Americas saw the biggest month-to-month change of 4.9%, followed by Asia Pacific at 3.5%. On a year-to-year basis, all regions saw double-digit growth in December, with Asia Pacific seeing 43.7% growth over December 1998. Likewise, Japan was up 41.3%, Americas rose 23.7%, and Europe climbed 15.3%.
SIA president George Scalise said growth was strong across all regions. "Sales were extremely strong for flash memory, chipsets and DRAM due to demand for Internet infrastructure, e-commerce and wired and wireless communications. Flash memory increased 83% in 1999, primarily driven by wireless communications and totaled $4.6 billion. DRAM increased 48% in 1999 due to strong PC and server demand and totaled $20.7 billion."
The SIA is calling for 20% growth in 2000 and 2001, but Banc of America Securities semiconductor capital equipment analyst Brett Hodess expects the sector will see 35-40% growth in 2000 and could post 40 percent growth in 2001, as well. Hodess made his comments at the 17th Annual Banc of America Securities' Technology Conference held the first week in February.
"The details for the semiconductor equipment growth cycle have fallen into place. Wafer fabrication utilization rates have increased for the fifth quarter in a row, to reach 95 percent," Hodess said.
Hodess said consumer and communications devices are the driving forces in the current up cycle. He also noted that consumer demand is spurred by a decrease in prices and enhanced performance in the products available.
With the focus on shrinking technologies (0.15-0.13 micron), 300mm, and copper interconnects, Hodess sees orders for all new semiconductor fabs boosting growth in 2001 and 2002.
In a separate report, Robert Castellano, president of The Information Network, said the market for front-end copper processing equipment grew slightly more than 36% in 1999. Castellano said he sees "300mm on the back burner, our analysis shows that copper technology is the next market mover, growing more than 50% in 2000."
Castellano believes that copper offers companies the opportunity to gain a technological edge with its products. He said copper is still in niche markets and will remain there for a while longer, but he noted that copper will be in the "mainstream within five years, moving into high gear with 0.15-0.13µm manufacturing."
USA
In one of the largest acquisition deals in the semiconductor equipment industry to date, Applied Materials has reached a definitive agreement to acquire leading mask tool supplier Etec Systems Inc., Hayward, CA, in a stock-for-stock merger roughly valued at $1.9 billion. Closing is expected as early as April, depending on regulatory and shareholder approval.
Wafer supplier MEMC Electronic Materials Inc., St. Peters, MO, is currently in negotiations with Pohang Iron & Steel Co., Ltd. (POSCO) to purchase POSCO's 40% interest in silicon wafer manufacturer, Posco Huls Co., Ltd. (PHC). PHC is an unconsolidated joint venture that was formed in 1990 in Korea, between POSCO, MEMC and Samsung. POSCO and MEMC each hold 40% interest and Samsung owns the remaining 20%. POSCO recently announced its desire to sell its interest in the JV. MEMC declined to offer comment on the negotiations.
After keeping 300mm production plans at bay for nearly two years, Intel Corp. is moving ahead with its first volume 300mm fab, a $2.0 billion line to be built at the microprocessor giant's Chandler, AZ, campus. Intel's facility — Fab 22 — will begin production on 200mm wafers using 0.13µm and copper processes next year; a transition to 300mm wafers will likely follow 12 months after, said an Intel spokesman.
Ibis Technology Corp., Danvers, MA, has entered a three-way joint development agreement with Samsung Electronics and Mitsubishi Materials Silicon Corp. As a part of the agreement, Ibis will enhance its Advantox SI MOX-SOI material to fit Samsung's needs. Samsung and Ibis will co-develop the tailored Advantox process and once completed, Ibis will sell the implanted wafers to Samsung. For its part, Mitsubishi will supply silicon wafers and be responsible for the materials characterization of the wafer before and after the oxide layer is implanted.
Aetrium Inc., St. Paul, MN, is consolidating its five operations into three, and will cut its 300-person workforce to 230 employees by April 1. Aetrium said the restructuring is expected to save more than $1 million/quarter. As a part of its restructuring, its Lawrence, MA, facility will close and the two Texas facilities will merge into one based in Dallas. Both consolidations are slated for completion by the end this month.
In an effort to better package a number of products acquired in the past several years, ATMI, Danbury, CT, said it has reorganized its materials group and named former Applied Materials executive Dan Marks as the unit's top sales VP. Under the changes, ATMI Materials will take on a "global product line" focus, while also increasing its focus on Asian markets. The company has divisions in Taiwan, Korea and Japan.
MRL Industries, Sonora, CA, will be increasing its manufacturing capacity this year by an additional 30,000 sq ft. The expansion will bring MRL's capacity to 80,000 sq ft and its total facility size to 100,000 sq ft.
Japan
Intel Corp. and Dai Nippon Printing Co. Ltd., will work together to jointly develop advanced photomask technologies for Intel's 0.13µm process technology. Intel is currently transitioning all of it mainstream microprocessor manufacturing to 0.18µm technology. The 0.13µm technology will be a follow-on technology and plans are to use it in 2001. If all goes well, Dai Nippon will make the 0.13 technology commercially available for semiconductor companies other than Intel.
In addition to its emphasis on system LSI manufacturing, Japan chipmaker NEC is again moving aggressively in the DRAM market, and said it will triple investments this year in its wholly owned DRAM subsidiary, NEC Hiroshima, in Higashi-Hiroshima. With the new funding, investments at NEC Hiroshima in fiscal year 2000 will total 40 billion yen (about US$379 million), up from the 13.5 billion yen NEC invested in the facility in FY99. NEC will increase 200mm wafer processing capacity there by 40%, to 35,000 wafers/month by March 2001.
TFT-LCD maker Sanyo said it will spend 91 billion yen (about US$870 million) this year on a new plant in Tottori, Japan, where its subsidiary
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Tottori Sanyo Electric will be producing 27,000 sheets/month in 2001. Capacity will double by 2003. Sharp will be investing a similar amount to increase production of flat panels at its Mie Plant near Nagoya.
Asia Pacific
IBM, Infineon, and UMC have plans to jointly develop advanced technologies for copper-based chips. Under the terms of the agreement, the companies will work together to develop a common process technology for building logic chips with circuit sizes from 0.13-0.10µm, using copper wiring. The development work will be done at IBM Semiconductor Research and Development Center in the US. The agreement extends through 2003.
1st Silicon Sdn. Bhd., Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia, has completed construction to make its new fab watertight. The construction was finished on time and within budget. The fab is expected to be operational in 3Q00.
Europe
Plasma system producer TePla, Germany, announced its plans to acquire 100% of Plasma-finish, also located in Germany. Both parties signed a corresponding letter of intent; however, no financial details were available at press time. Following the transaction, Plasma-finish will become a daughter company of TePla AG.
Carl Zeiss, Jena, Germany, and Boin GmbH, Tomerdingen, Germany have signed an OEM agreement for the use of Boin's WAFERMAP software. The software will be used on Carl Zeiss' Workstation Axiospeed FT PLUS to analyze and visualize film thickness measurements.