World News
09/01/2001
WORLDWIDE HIGHLIGHTS
B-to-B sees second monthly uptick
The North American book-to-bill ratio rose to 0.54 for the month of June, the second consecutive monthly rise following declines for most of 2001, according to Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (Semi), San Jose, CA. Semi's June Express Report stated that worldwide bookings for June totaled $704.7 million, 1% below May's revised level of $714 million and 75% below the $2.86 billion in orders posted for same period last year.
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Worldwide front-end capacity utilization, however, dropped in June, sliding to 77.8% from May's 81.5%, according to VLSI Research. VLSI predicts that this figure will climb steadily until November, reaching 88.9% and dropping to 87.3% for December.
Worldwide sales of semiconductors were $11.60 billion in June, a decrease of 30.7% from $16.74 billion a year ago, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) reported. On a month-to-month basis, June sales were 8.8% below the May 2001 level of $12.71 billion.
USA
Intel Corp., San Jose, CA, plans to begin construction on a $2 billion 300mm fab in Hillsboro, OR. The chip giant has filed development review applications with the city for a three-story, 175,000ft2 facility, named D1D. The company said it hopes to have a concrete slab and part of the building shell in place by year's end. Intel hopes to open the facility in 2003, according to spokesman Bill MacKenzie, when the current economic downturn is over. He said Intel plans to hire 3000 workers for the new facility.
Philips Analytical, Almelo, Netherlands, will open its newest facility in Chandler, AZ, with a ribbon cutting ceremony this fall. The 10,000ft2 office and demo facility will support the Americas region, Philips said, and help the company's existing link with the semiconductor R&D and production environments in the West and Midwest.
Automatic test equipment maker Advantest Corp., Santa Clara, CA, has established a new R&D center for product development and technical support for its electronic measuring instruments in Portland, OR. The Advantest America Design Center will develop and expand the company's electronic measuring instruments business in the US in product planning, development, marketing, and manufacturing. A total of 14 engineers and staff were to be hired at the new center.
American Silicon Products Inc., (ASP), Armonk, NY, a subsidiary of SEMX Corp., has opened a copper reclamation facility. The new facility has passed several qualifications, has received numerous orders, and is now in production mode. The company said the separate facility was necessary for stripping the copper in order to avoid contamination of its silicon reclamation operations.
BOC Edwards' component management division, BOC Edwards Kachina, has opened a new component cleaning facility in Hillsboro, OR. The 22,000ft2 facility is the company's third in the US. The process flow in the new facility uses a cellular flow concept where dedicated cells are segregated by tool type, followed by dedicated grit blasters for each cleaning process. The facility also features an enhanced CO2 cleaning process and a Class 100 cleanroom.
Schlumberger Semiconductor Solutions (SSS), San Jose, CA, a unit of Schlumberger, has introduced its first IC analysis farm to provide fabless companies and semiconductor manufacturers access to a diagnostic probe technology that does not require the onsite presence of a design engineer. The facility's services include device preparation, customer support, and software for off-line analysis. Device fixturing, pattern translation and text optimization services are also available, SSS said.
PRI Automation, Billerica, MA, has acquired WaferState Controls, Round Rock, TX, an advanced process control consulting and services firm. PRI said that WaferState was a leader of consulting services in the areas of run-to-run control for CMP and lithography equipment and fault detection for etch equipment. Tony Mullins, WaferState's president, will head up PRI's new APC services practice.
Cirrus Logic, Austin, TX, will acquire LuxSonor Semiconductors, Fremont, CA, a manufacturer of semiconductors for audio and video devices for some $65 million in a stock transaction. The acquisition has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies, and Cirrus reported the deal will strengthen its position to provide solutions for next-generation, Internet-ready DVD players and networked entertainment systems.
Brooks Automation, Chelmsford, MA, has completed the purchase of the e-diagnostics infrastructure from KLA-Tencor, San Jose, CA. KLA-Tencor received a combination of cash and Brooks common stock totaling $33 million. Additional payments are contingent upon achieving certain business objectives. In another business deal, Brooks has acquired CCS Technology, Williston, VT, a supplier of 300mm test automation software. The deal is a purchase transaction for a combination of cash and Brooks common stock totaling some $5.4 million.
Entegris Inc., Chaska, MN, has signed a letter of intent to purchase the assets of Critical Clean Solutions (CCS), a submicron cleaning service provider based in Gilroy, CA. According to Entegris, the acquisition of CCS provides the Minnesota firm with the people and facilities necessary to complete the infrastructure for its Silicon Delivery and Disk Delivery systems and services programs.
Manufacturer of flexible automation for the semiconductor industry, Adept Technology, San Jose, CA, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately held CHAD Industries, Orange, CA, in exchange for a combination of equity and cash to be paid over the next three years. CHAD designs and manufactures custom automation tools and processes.
FEI Company, Hillsboro, OR, has entered into a joint development agreement with research consortium International Sematech for accelerated development of next generation focused ion beam (FIB) mask repair tools. Under the multiyear agreement, Sematech will work with FEI to develop FIB tools for mask repair using 100nm node technology for 193nm lithography and 70nm node technology for 157nm lithography. The agreement calls for tool development in the first four years.
In other Sematech news, the international consortium will work along with the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association, and Semiconductor Leading Edge Technologies on Equipment Engineering Capability (EEC), an initiative aimed at expanding the scope of e-diagnostics efforts. The EEC initiative expands on e-Diagnostics requirements and will add guidelines for improved equipment productivity applying advanced process control, spare parts management, and maintenance assistance.
Microsemi Corp., Irvine, CA, has entered into an agreement with Nitronex, Raleigh, NC, to fabricate a line of blue and ultraviolet LEDs. According to the companies, these will be the first ever on-silicon substrates. The companies aim to increase light output and reduce the power needed by their future line of LEDs to light the displays of battery-operated mobile phones, PDAs, and other information appliances. The companies expect the first blue flip chip hermetic class LED products from their alliance to be ready by the end of this year.
As part of $1 million in awards to four institutions, the New York State Office of Science, Technology, and Academic Research (NYSTAR)'s Technology Transfer Incentive Program has awarded Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute $300,000 in funding to evaluate new microelectronics insulating material. The material has the potential to double microchip processing speeds. The Polyset Co., Mechanicville, NY, will provide an additional $300,000 in funding for the two-year project. RPI chemistry professor James Crivello developed and patented a process for making pure multifunctional epoxy siloxane resines, an insulating material for micro- and optoelectronics applications.
JAPAN
The Japanese Fair Trade Commission has allowed the proposed integration of silicon wafer operations by Sumitomo Metal Industries and Mitsubishi Materials Corp., saying that it will not violate Japan's anti-monopoly law. The FTC said that the consolidation, which will occur in January, will not hinder fair competition because other manufacturers have domestic market shares of more than 10% apiece. The two firms combined will control about 30% of the market.
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Showa Denko K.K. (SDK), Tokyo, Japan, has concluded an agreement with NTT Advanced Technology Corp., (NTT-AT), under which SDK will begin contract manufacturing of indium gallium phosphide epitaxial wafers used in NTT-AT's hetero bipolar transistors. The companies have also concluded a technical agreement whereby SDK's compound semiconductor volume production technology will be combined with NTT-AT's relevant epitaxial growth and device evaluation technologies.
Toshiba, Tokyo, Japan, will cut its capital-spending target for semiconductors nearly 30% to $800 million (¥100 billion) due to the market slump. The company said that most of the spending cuts were in the memory chip sector.
EUROPE
The European Commission has given antitrust clearance to a joint venture between STMicroelectronics, Geneva, Switzerland and Hitachi Ltd., Tokyo, Japan. In a statement, a spokesman for the European Union's head office said, "The Commission has concluded that no competition concerns arise from the transaction." The joint venture, called SuperH, will develop and license microprocessor architecture for embedded system applications.
Axcelis Technologies, Beverly, MA, and ASM International N.V., Bilthoven, Netherlands, will work together to further develop dry strip methods for removing photoresist over advanced low-k dielectric materials. The joint development program is aimed at accelerating the integration and adoption of these low-k materials into IC manufacturing processes. The companies hope to demonstrate optimized downstream plasma resist strip processes, and also intend to extend the process development work to ASM's next-generation ultra-low-k materials using Axcelis' enhanced strip technologies.
Industrial gases company Praxair, Danbury, CT, reported that its Oevel, Belgium, semiconductor process gases facility has received QS 9000 certification. The plant creates product blends and supplies various silicon precursor, etchant, dopant, and reactant semiconductor process gases for worldwide distribution.
ST Assembly Test Services (STATS), Singapore, has opened an office in Evry, France, to expand its customer support capability in Europe, particularly in key areas such as France, Italy, and Spain. The new office will leverage the engineering knowledge of STATS' Test Development Center in the UK to support European customers with a suite of test design and development solutions.
ASIA PACIFIC
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC), Hsinchu, Taiwan, and Applied Materials, San Jose, CA, have entered into an $80 million agreement, in which the US company will manage spare parts inventory for TSMC's installed base of Applied systems. TSMC will extend its use of Applied's Total Parts Management program through TSMC's fabs because it will help to achieve significant cost reductions in spare parts ownership and administration, the company said, and increase inventory efficiency for Applied's systems.
In other TSMC news, the company plans to carry out the sub-contracted manufacturing of radio-frequency IC products for Conexant Systems. TSMC started the supply of silicon germanium products used in network and radio communications in 1H01.
Advantest Taiwan has set up Shanghai Tailong Semiconductor (STS), a testing joint venture that will receive $10 million from Shanghai's Zhangjiang Industrial Zone. Basing its production on high-tier technologies such as ball grid array and chip-scale package technologies, the JV is forecast to start mass production of semiconductor products in early 2002. STS has sped up construction of its workshops and plans to send samples to customers for certification at the end of 2001. Advantest holds a 10% stake in STS.
Silicon Storage Technology, Sunnyvale, CA, plans to invest an undisclosed amount of money in the $1.63 billion Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp.'s (GSMC) Shanghai chip plant. GSMC is expected to produce 50,000 200mm wafers/month when production begins in 2H02. Construction of the plant, located in Shanghai's Zhangjiang High-Tech Park, began in November.
ON Semiconductor, Phoenix, AZ, will invest $100 million to build a 6-in. wafer fab plant in Leshan in China's Sichuan Province. According to ON, this investment makes the company the first US firm to invest in 6-in. analog IC production in the region.
RF Micro Devices, Greensboro, NC, maker of radio-frequency products used in cell phones, plans to open a facility in China, the company's first overseas factory.
The parts produced in the new Chinese plant will be for cell phone giant Nokia. RF plans to invest $20 million in the plant, which will serve as the final assembly point for parts made in the US. RF Micro Devices hopes to begin building the facility in the Beijing Xingwang Industrial Park this fall with completion expected about a year later.
IBM has begun production of a new $300 million chip-sealing and packaging facility in Shanghai's Wiagaoqiao Free Trade Zone (WFTZ). After its first-phase construction, the plant will be capable of turning out $340 million worth of products annually, according to WFTZ sources. WFTZ has also confirmed that another chip-sealing and packaging project will begin soon, involving Amco, with a total investment of $60 million.
The British Standards Institution has granted Dongbu Electronics, Eumsung, Korea, ISO 9001:2000 certification. Dongbu claims it is the world's first wafer foundry to meet the standards in the latest version of ISO 9001 standards, which went into effect early this year.