World News
08/01/2001
WORLDWIDE HIGHLIGHTS
SEMI B-to-B ratio rises; shipments and orders continue decline
The book-to-bill ratio North America went up slightly in May, but officials from Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) weren't reading much into the uptick.
"While the book-to-bill ratio is slightly elevated from the prior month, both shipments and orders continued to decline," said SEMI CEO Stanley Meyers. "It is likely that the prospects for sustained year-over-year improvements in monthly shipments are three to four quarters away."
May's ratio of 0.46 is an increase of 0.02 from April's revised figure of 0.44 —the first jump, no matter how slight, seen for months.
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The $704 million logged for the three-month average of worldwide bookings is 3% below the revised April 2001 level of $723 million and 75% below the $2.78 billion posted for May 2000. The three-month average of worldwide shipments for the month was $1.52 billion, 9% below the $2.16 billion posted for the same period last year.
VLSI Research, San, Jose, CA, reported in its Industry Pulse Pro that the worldwide IC book-to-bill ratio rose to 0.76 for the month of May, an increase of 0.12 from April's revised 0.64 and the highest book-to-bill ratio reported for 2001 to date. The firm predicts the number will increase to 0.82 for the month of June.
Worldwide orders rose 12% for May, up to $8.38 billion from the $7.48 billion logged for April. VLSI expects that number to drop slightly for the month of June to $8.13 billion. Worldwide front-end capacity utilization remained flat for May maintaining its 83% from April.
Worldwide semiconductor sales continued to drop for the month of May, falling to $12.71 billion, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), San Jose, CA.
That figure is a 20% decline from the $15.9 billion logged a year ago and 7.4% lower than April 2001's $13.72 billion.
Geographically, Asia Pacific logged the most sales for the month with $3.38 billion, down 4.5% over last month's $3.54 billion and a drop of 16.6% from the $4.05 billion from last year in the region. The Americas followed with $3.34 billion, a decline of 10.9% from last month's $3.75 billion and a whopping 32.1% decrease from the $4.92 billion logged in May 2000. Japan ranked third totaling $3.15 billion, a monthly drop of 5.9%, and a year-over-year decline of 10.6% from May 2000's $3.53 billion. Europe logged the lowest amount with $2.83 billion, sliding 7.8% from April's $3.07 billion and 16.6% below last year's $3.4 billion.
USA
Cree Inc., Durham, NC, and Microsemi Corp., Irvine, CA, have signed a letter of intent for the development of silicon carbide (SiC) Schottky diodes. The letter calls for the parties to negotiate a development agreement under which Cree will provide SiC chips and Microsemi will develop packaging, applications, and marketing distribution channels.
Entegris, Chaska, MN, has completed the acquisition of NT International, Minneapolis, MN, for a cash payment of $27.5 million. NT International is a privately held company that designs and manufactures patented ultra-high purity flow and pressure measurement sensors and controllers. Key NT employees will remain in leadership roles, Entegris said.
Everett Charles Technologies, Pomona, CA, a subsidiary of Dover Corp. and part of Dover Technologies, has acquired German test handling manufacturer Multitest AG. Multitest is the third German acquisition by Everett Charles in the past four years. The California company said increased consolidation in the test sector has led it to seek stronger market position through acquisitions of companies like Multitest.
Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates Inc. (VSEA), Gloucester, MA, was awarded US patent number 6,187,643 for a simplified semiconductor device manufacturing method using low energy high tilt angle and high energy post gate ion implantation (PoGI). The PoGI approach may reduce IC manufacturing costs, a VSEA spokeperson said, by eliminating up to four of the masking levels required for device production.
Ibis Technology Corp., Danvers, MA, has reduced its headcount by 14%, in addition to other cost-cutting measures. The company cites the continuing downturn of the semiconductor and telecommunications industries as the reason for the cutbacks. Other measures include cutting pay for senior executives and lowering nonessential discretionary spending.
Electroglas Inc., San Jose, CA, and Wright Williams & Kelly, Pleasanton, CA, have signed an agreement to jointly develop real-time systems for monitoring equipment performance using the Statware tool set Electroglas acquired in January. The companies said the system will help fabs manage and model manufacturing processes by identifying cost drivers and the cost impact of capital equipment purchases, alternative processes, and overall equipment efficiency improvements.
Dow Corning Corp., Midland, MI, has opened and qualified a large-scale, commercial production facility to supply its Z3MS CVD dielectric. The facility, which is ISO9002 certified, is split between Carrollton, KY, and Midland, MI.
Also, Dow Corning Corp., and the National Institute of Standards and Technology have found a k value of 1.5 and a relationship between structural characteristics and process conditions of HSQ-based, porous, low-k thin films, according to Dow. A lower dielectric constant was reported as a result of both a slight increase in the porosity and decrease in the wall density, which, according to Dow, shows the extendibility of HSQ-based films.
Integrated Device Technology, Santa Clara, CA, will cut 900 jobs, or 18% of its work force, due to a slowing demand for chips. IDT forecasts that it will save $11 million/year from the job cuts. It will record $2.5 million in severance costs, according to IDT.
Tality Corp., San Jose, CA, a subsidiary of Cadence Design Systems, has signed a $4.6 million agreement with Fairchild Semiconductor International, South Portland, ME, to provide engineering services to the company's interface and logic business over a two-year period. Tality will provide a team of engineers to cut costs out of current production and designs.
LSI Logic Corp., Milpitas, CA, has completed its acquisition of C-Cube Microsystems, a silicon provider for digital set-top box, DVD and emerging CODEC-based applications, by means of an exchange offer and subsequent merger of a wholly owned subsidiary of both companies. C-Cube is now a wholly owned subsidiary of LSI Logic. LSI acquired more than 90% of C-Cube common stock.
Also, LSI Logic Corp. and X-FAB Semiconductor Foundries AG, Erfurt, Germany, have signed a definitive agreement calling for X-FAB to purchase LSI Logic's Colorado Springs, CO, facility for $120 million. The mixed-signal facility can produce 3000 200mm wafers/week, employs 0.35, 0.50, and 0.60µm process technologies, and has demonstrated 0.25µm capability.
MEMC Electronic Materials, St. Peters, MO, will close its 125mm and 150mm polished and epitaxial wafer manufacturing line at MEMC Southwest, located in Sherman, TX. MEMC said the downturn in the semiconductor industry has caused semiconductor manufacturers to move production to larger diameter wafers, where they can gain manufacturing cost advantages. MEMC Southwest is a joint venture 80% owned by MEMC and 20% by Texas Instruments. Three hundred employees will be laid off due to the closures.
Micro Photonix, Phoenix, AZ, has completed its 4000ft2 cleanroom in its Phoenix facility. The 10/100-class facility is already operational, fabricating optical components from production wafers.
NEC Electronics, Santa Clara, CA and ATMOS Corp., Kanata, Ontario, Canada, are collaborating to develop and offer embedded DRAM for the communications and wireless industries. NEC and ATMOS will jointly develop two macrocells, complete designs for a particular chip function. NEC will fabricate the test chips and ATMOS will evaluate them for adherence to design architecture parameters. Additionally, ATMOS will qualify both bare die and package devices.
Axcelis Technologies, Beverly, MA, and the SEZ Group, Villach, Austria, have begun a development partnership to study the benefits of integrating dry and wet cleaning technologies. Initially, the companies will concentrate on optimizing combined dry and wet cleaning processes for resist strip and residue removal applied to copper/low-k, and dual-damascene applications.
ON Semiconductor Corp., Phoenix, AZ, is laying off 1000 workers worldwide, out of 13,400, and is cutting back on the salaries of the remaining staff by 10%. ON also closed its plants in Arizona and Rhode Island for two weeks at the end of June. The layoffs are the third for the company this year, with 350 sales and administrative staff cut in February and 630 jobs cut in April.
Amkor Technology, West Chester, PA, will merge with Sampo Semiconductor Corp. and Taiwan Semiconductor Technology Corp. (TSTC) in Taiwan. The major shareholders of Sampo (Sampo Corp. and China Development Industrial Bank), and the controlling shareholders of TSTC (Including TSMC and Acer Inc.) will transfer their holdings to Amkor via a share swap to enable the foreign buyers to take over the management of Sampo Semicon.
Also, Amkor Technology is set to license wafer-level packaging technology from Flip Chip Technologies (FCT), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kulicke & Soffa Industries, Willow Grove, PA. The agreement states that Amkor will use FCT's Ultra CSP wafer-level package as an extension to the flex-on-cap and redistribution flip-chip technology transfer agreement, which was announced in March 2000.
Microtest, Phoenix, AZ, has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Danaher Corp. in an all-cash transaction valued at $8.15/share, or $74 million. Microtest will be combined with Danaher's Fluke Networks subsidiary.
Alpine Microsystems, Campbell, CA, a designer and manufacturer of custom system level integration products, has received a patent from the US Patent Office for its DirectAttach IC packaging technology (Patent number 6,175,161, "A System and Method for Packaging ICs").
ThetaDelta Technologies, a designer and manufacturer of thermal conditioning products for semiconductor environmental testing applications, has moved into a larger engineering facility in Lawrence, MA. The new space is 11,600 ft2, 80% larger than the previous location.
PerkinElmer Instruments has relocated its headquarters to Shelton, CT. The company will move to the redesigned 245,000 ft2 facility in mid-June. Previously the company was located at two separate facilities in Connecticut.
JAPAN
Seiko Epson, Suwa, Japan, and IBM have agreed in principle to jointly establish a state-of-the-art logic LSI manufacturing venture on the site of IBM Japan's Yasu Plant in Shiga Prefecture, near Kyoto. They will start logic LSI production quickly after they establish the new firm by using IBM Japan's existing LSI production line there. By expanding the existing facility, they will add a 0.13µm 300mm line. They will establish 0.10µm capability in the near future by borrowing from IBM's most advanced fab in the US, and will also implement IBM's state-of-the- art technologies such as copper wiring and low-k materials. Logic LSIs will be made for both IBM and Seiko Epson. The new venture plans to manufacture advanced logic LSIs, combining IBM's high speed semiconductor technology and Seiko Epson's low voltage, low power LSI technology based on CMOS ICS.
 Japanese tool orders dropped to x70.58 in April, down from x88.5 in March. |
Canon confirms that it has agreed in principle to cooperate with industry EUV research efforts in precompetitive areas, though it has no plans for joint development, specifically with Nikon, as was reported previously in the Japanese press. "We already have in place our own development plans for EUV lithography equipment. As for the commercialization of Canon EUV-generation products, we intend to carry that out by ourselves," said Takeshi Sekiguchi, advisory director and deputy chief executive of optical products operations. "But, to speed up the development of this technology, we would be willing to cooperate on pre-competitive-level technology."
The Association of Super Advanced Technologies' (ASET) EUV Lithography Committee has been working on organizing an industry consortium, to be tentatively called EUV International Corp., and participants have said both Canon and Nikon agree in principle to participate. Nikon has worked with ASET research projects for some time. Japanese sources say Japanese semiconductor houses' interest in EUV is low, and research in Japan lags behind that in the US, so some think funding might come mainly from outside Japan.
Canon and Infineon plan to work together to speed up development of lithography equipment using a 157nm F2 light source, for production at the 70nm design rule.
Infineon engineers are working with Canon at its Utsunomiya plant to provide process information to help move tool development along. After the tool is made and installed at Infineon's Dresden plant — original target date 2Q03 — Canon engineers will go along to continue process development there through 2004. The companies figure the fluorine dimer laser source may present fewer problems than ArF and KrF for manufacturing devices of at the 70nm design rule and beyond.
Fujitsu hopes to increase efficiency of its next-generation LSI development by concentrating both its R&D and pilot production at its Akiruno Technology Center. The company will transfer process engineers working on 0.13- to 0.10µm development at its Mie plant, and scientists working on future devices at its Fujitsu Research Labs in Atsugi, Kanagawa, to its new R&D and pilot production base outside of Tokyo. A development and pilot production line for 0.10µm devices and beyond will open at Akiruno in September. Staffing at the center will then increase to 2800, from the current 2000. Fujitsu engineers at Mie will wrap up their joint research with Sony on 0.13µm systems-on-a-chip processes before they move to Akiruno.
TSK and its venture protégé Leepl have signed up an A-list of Japan's mask and resist suppliers to join their consortium to exchange information and promote usage of low-energy electron-beam proximity projection lithography. Potential suppliers NTT Advanced Technology, Dai Nippon Printing, Toppan Printing, HOYA, Tokyo Ohka, JSR, and Fuji Film Arch will join the consortium, as will potential users NEC, Rohm, and Sony. Sony plans to be the first user of the LEEPL lithography process. TSK says it expects more companies to join as they see what the technology can do. The consortium will test and evaluate the new approach at its Technology Evaluation Lab at TSK's plant in Hachioji, Japan. The project will run until March 2004.
EUROPE
Applied Materials, Santa Clara, CA, has signed an agreement to acquire Oramir Semiconductor Equipment Ltd., Yoqneam, Israel. Oramir specializes in advanced laser cleaning technologies for semiconductor wafers. The acquisition, which involves an undisclosed cash amount, is pending approval by the Israeli government. Oramir is expected to be integrated with Applied Materials' Process Diagnostics and Control Business Group, headquartered in Rehovot, Israel.
BOC Coating Technology, part of BOC Edwards, Crawley, England, has acquired Intellemetrics, Glasgow, UK. Intellemetrics designs and manufactures on-tool monitoring and control equipment for vacuum deposition and etch processes. According to BOC, the founders of Intellemetrics will continue as members of the management team and the Intellemetrics brand will remain unchanged.
Micronic Laser Systems AB, Taby, Sweden, and ASML Holding NV, Veldhoven, Netherlands, have reached an agreement in principle to enter into a strategic alliance where the companies will start a joint program to develop new photomask tools in the area of lithography applications.
Innolite AB, Carl Zeiss, AIXUV GmbH, Alcatel, Thales Laser, Philips, and Xtreme Technologies will collaborate in Medea+, a new industry-initiated, pan-European program for advanced R&D in microelectronics to develop an EUV light source for next generation lithography. Innolite said it expects its EUV light source technology to be a significant part of the effort.
ASIA PACIFIC
Metrology equipment supplier Nanometrics Korea, a subsidiary of Nanometrics, Milpitas, CA, has opened its new support and manufacturing facility in Pyungtaek City, Korea. The new building is nearly five times larger than the previous facility. Nanometrics Korea will continue to manufacture the Metra line of overlay metrology systems, provide technical support for all Nanometrics products, and collaborate on joint R&D projects with customers. The company will employ 40 workers at the new facility.
Hsuan Mingchih, board chairman at United Microelectronics Co. Ltd. (UMC), Taipei, Taiwan, has said that the company's 300mm wafer A plant in Taiwan's Science-based Industrial Park has produced its first batch of 300mm wafers. UMC said it is the first plant on the island to produce the larger size wafers. The chairman said that most 300mm products in the first batch reached UMC standards. The plant will produce 5000 wafers/month by the end of 2001, and will ramp to full capacity by 4Q02.
Sharp Microelectronics of the Americas (SMA), the US-based division of Sharp Electronics Corp., has formed a relationship with TSMC, Hsinchu, Taiwan, for volume production of SMA's microcontroller and SoC designs. Engineers at SMA's new North American Design Center in Camas, WA, are designing the products, which will be manufactured in production volumes using TSMC's 0.35 and 0.25µm CMOS logic and EmbFlash processes.
Due to the downturn in the memory market, DRAM maker Mosel Vitelic, Taipei, Taiwan, is shelving plans to build two 300mm wafer fabs in Taiwan and Canada. On a brighter note, Mosel Vitelic subsidiary and joint venture with Infineon Technologies AG, ProMOS Technologies, will be among the first of the Taiwanese DRAM makers to migrate below 0.17µm process technology, according to the company. ProMOS has pushed ahead the opening of its 300mm wafer fab to December of this year, with volume runs planned for 1Q02. The new fab, according to the company, will use a 0.14-micron process to produce 128-Mbit and 256-Mbit DRAM.
Toshiba Machine and Simplex Solutions have introduced the "X Architecture," a new interconnect architecture based on the pervasive use of diagonal routing. The X Architecture rotates the primary direction of the interconnect in the fourth and fifth metal layers by 45° from a Manhattan architecture. This reduces the total interconnect, or wiring, on a chip by more than 20%. The X Initiative, committed to accelerating the adoption and fabrication of semiconductor chips using the X Architecture, is comprised of companies including Toshiba, Simplex, Artisan Components, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., STMicroelectronics, Dai Nippon Printing, DuPont Photomasks, Etec Systems (an Applied Materials company), KLA-Tencor, Numerical Technologies, PDF Solutions, Tensilica, Toshiba, and Virtual Silicon Technology.
Communications chipmaker Conexant Systems has sent representatives to Taiwan in order to sell its 200mm wafer fab plant in the US. UMC, Taipei, Taiwan, is reportedly expressing the most interest.
The plant acquisition deal is soon to be completed, with staffing issues reportedly being the only outstanding issue.
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SMIF integration and mini-environments cause users most grief
Increasingly complex integrated production processes mean chipmakers and their equipment suppliers are going to have to work together more closely if they're going to get new tools up and running faster and more reliably. LSI Logic finds that nearly two thirds of its fab tools average < 48 hrs between interrupts, and the biggest cause of breakdown by far is the automation, especially the standard manufacturing interface. Another growing problem with new tools is the mini-environment, where 60-100% of first-of-a-kind tools have failed certification in recent years. While toolmakers have tended to leave these integration and manufacturing areas to the chip manufacturers, the chipmakers want suppliers to support them just as they do other subcomponents. Figures courtesy of LSI Logic.