World News
01/01/2000
Worldwide highlights
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Semi's book-to-bill climbs to 1.09. Orders and shipments of semiconductor equipment from North America producers stayed almost the same in October, with a preliminary book-to-bill ratio of 1.09, according to the Semi trade association. Bookings in the month totaled $1.59 billion, up slightly from a revised $1.50 billion in September (see table). Shipments totaled $1.46 billion, a bit higher than September's revised $1.40 billion, the trade association said. All figures are three-month moving averages.
"The October numbers show that equipment orders are back on track for full recovery," said Stanley Myers, president of Semi.
Both Semi and the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) said they were hopeful that the new trade pact between the US and China will serve as the first step to increase exports and help expand China's market for US companies. Currently, tariffs on semiconductor equipment run as high as 40%. The agreement between the People's Republic of China and US is expected to help China to enter into the World Trade Organization and the International Technology Agreement, which aims to eliminate tariffs on semiconductor manufacturing equipment by 2005. China is currently estimated to be an $8 billion semiconductor market.
USA
With fourth quarter earnings shattering Wall Street expectations, Applied Materials said new orders in the period ended October 31 reached a record $1.65 billion, up 13% from Q3 and 141% from year-ago levels. The company said net income for the quarter totaled $307 million, or 77 cents/share, well above First Call analysts consensus estimates of 64 cents/share. The earnings figure is higher than the $254 million (64 cents/share) Applied reported in the previous quarter, and marks a strong rebound from the $8 million in net income for Q4 of last year. Revenues in the period totaled $1.57 billion, up 9% from Q3 revenues of $1.43 billion.
A joint agreement aimed at accelerating the development of SCALPEL projection e-beam technology into a production-worthy next generation lithography solution has been reached, with Applied Materials and ASM Lithography forming a joint venture of their own to participate in the program. As part of the effort, Lucent Technologies Inc., Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector, Samsung Electronics Co., and Texas Instruments, are teaming up on SCALPEL development. Applied Materials and ASM Lithography Holding will also participate through their joint venture company, eLith LLC.
Austin Semiconductor Inc., Austin, TX, has signed a cooperative research agreement with the Defense Microelectronics Activity, Sacramento, CA, to support its new flexible foundry. The foundry was formed to support 5V semiconductors.
Lam Research, Fremont, CA, expanded its technology base with the purchase of a post-CMP cleaning process from Oliver Design Inc., Scotts Valley, CA, for approximately $8.8 million. The purchase includes intellectual property rights related to cleaning wafers, as well as licenses for developing future semiconductor applications for Oliver's cleaning technology, originally targeted for the disk drive industry.
Two US patents for RF plasma measurement and control technology were granted to Advanced Energy Industries Inc., Fort Collins, CO. The first patent, number 5,939,886, covers techniques for plasma monitoring and control of RF power. The second patent, number 5,576,629, builds on techniques covered by the latter and includes technology for controlling voltage, current, and phase angle of RF power directed to the plasma-producing gas.
Newport Corp., Irvine, CA, acquired the commercial optics operation of Corning OCA Inc., Garden Grove, CA, a subsidiary of Corning Inc. The business unit will remain in its Garden Grove facility, and all existing Newport optics operations will be consolidated to that location.
Ultratech Stepper, San Jose, CA, and ShinEtsu MicroSi, Phoenix, AZ, formed a nonexclusive strategic alliance to jointly develop processes for thick film and specialty photoresist applications using the Ultratech 1x and reduction line of steppers.
August Technology, Edina, MN, has formed an international distribution partnership with Metron Technology, Burlingame, CA. Metron will support Asia sales of August's NSX family of systems for inspection wafers, die, and bumps, and the CV Series for wafer cassette inspection. August's engineers will train sales and support staff at Metron offices in China, Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and India.
DuPont Photomasks Inc. (DPI), Round Rock, TX, is expanding its manufacturing capabilities with two new advanced production lines capable of building photomasks for semiconductors with design rules of 0.18 micron. The lines, located within DPI's Round Rock, TX, and Santa Clara, CA, facilities, represent a $38 million investment.
The Storage Systems Division of IBM chose Camstar Systems Inc.'s InSite manufacturing execution system for use in its global network of thin-film head manufacturing facilities. The InSite product will provide a single, consistent view of IBM's worldwide production.
Electronic Visions Inc., Phoenix, AZ, and the University at Albany, Albany, NY, are joining forces to develop the first industrial 8-in. wafer bonder and aligner specifically designed for MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) manufacturing. The joint venture should allow the MEMS users to take advantage of the IC industry's standard 8-in. foundry-manufacturing infrastructure.
Taiwan
The head of Taiwan's Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park (HSIP) — the island's chipmaking hub — left the general director's post in December. Kung Wang had been the HSIP administration's general director for the past three years, overseeing all operations from land use and power supply to industry development within the park. He will be succeeded by Wen-hsiung Huang, the current director of the Tainan Science-Based Industrial Park and former director of the Precision Instrument Development Center in Hsinchu.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s board approved an NT$78 billion (about US$2.46 billion) capital spending plan for next year. Funds will be used to expand and upgrade four fabs and begin construction on the company's second 200mm plant in the Tainan Science-Based Industrial Park. At the same time, plans for 300mm fabs in Taiwan are firming up at both TSMC and rival foundry UMC Group.
Adept Technology Inc., San Jose, CA, has signed Kingroup Automation Industry Corporation, Taiwan, as its integrator to handle flat panel system business in Taiwan. Kingroup will use Adept's AdeptAtlas robot as the cornerstone for the FPD automation systems it will offer to Taiwan manufacturers.
Asia/Pacific
M+W Zander has won a contract from the Korean National Institute for Technology and Quality to design and build a research facility in Seoul. The project was scheduled for completion in December.
GaSonics International Corp. has entered a joint development agreement with Korean DRAM manufacturer Hyundai Electronics. As part of the deal, GaSonics has installed a PEP Iridia DL system in Hyundai's Memory Research and Development Division, which will use the tool to clean high-aspect ratio contact and metal gate structures for next-generation 256MB and 1GB DRAM devices.
Japan
ThermoMicroscopes Inc., Sunnyvale, CA, has entered into an agreement with Toyo Corp., Tokyo, Japan, which states that Toyo will represent ThermoMicroscopes' products in Japan.
Lithography system supplier Nikon, Tokyo, plans to grow its stepper business to the 250 billion yen (about US$2.3 billion) level in FY02, up from the present 150 billion yen of 1999. Of the total, steppers for semiconductors will account for 220 to 225 billion yen and steppers for LCDs will account for the remaining 25 to 30 billion yen. Nikon expects to sell a total of 530 steppers in FY02, compared with 325 units for FY99.
Europe
Saint-Gobain, Paris, France, has combined the operations of its wholly owned subsidiary, Norton Performance Plastics, with recently acquired Furon Co. to create a new business unit, Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics. The unit, headquartered in Wayne, NJ, will employ 5400 people worldwide.
ASM Lithography Holding N.V., Veldhoven, Netherlands, said it intends to raise $400 million through a private offering of convertible subordinate notes due in 2004. The company stated that it will use the net proceeds from the offering to fund capital expenditures and to support increases in working capital related to anticipated increases in sales and production volumes. ASM also intends to fund research and development programs and investments in new technologies.
Rest of World
Nova Measuring Instruments Ltd., Rehovoth, Israel, received patent number 5,957,749 from the US Patent and Trademark office for apparatus that measures the optical thickness of wafers during polishing. The patent pertains to a system that allows in-wafer metrology technology for CMP process control.
ISO BRIEFS
Implant Center Inc., San Jose, CA, a foundry operation for ion implant processing for semiconductor and related industries, received ISO 9002 certification from Quality Systems Registrars Inc.
Quad Europe, Ltd. Willow Grove, PA, received ISO 9001 for excellence in quality management and quality assurance from the British Standards Institute.
KLA-Tencor Corp., San Jose, CA, earned ISO 9002 from the Underwriters Laboratories Inc. for its E-Beam Metrology Division, the second KLA-Tencor division to meet or exceed its objectives to become ISO compliant.