World News
06/01/2001
WORLDWIDE HIGHLIGHTS
Worldwide semiconductor sales continued to weaken in March, falling to $14.4 billion, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), San Jose, CA. That figure is a 4.5% drop from the $15.07 billion logged a year ago and a 7% decline from February's $15.48 billion.
Geographically, all regions declined again for the month of March according to SIA, with the Americas falling the hardest. The region fell to $4.11 billion, down 13.4% from February's $4.75 billion. March's figure is also down 10.6% from the $4.6 billion logged for the same period last year.
The Asia Pacific region also fell for March, dropping 5.6% to $3.42 billion from February's $3.62 billion. Japan logged $3.59 billion for March, a decrease of 4.7% over February's $3.76 billion. The European region declined 2% for the month, falling to $3.28 billion from the $3.34 billion logged in February.
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Worldwide front-end utilization numbers continued to drop as well, though not by as much as in recent months. The latest Industry Pulse Pro from VLSI Research, San Jose, CA, reported a 2% drop from February to March, going from 82.8% to 80.8%.
The North American book-to-bill ratio slid again for March, declining to 0.64, according to Semi (Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International), San Jose, CA. Orders were 36% lower than shipments for the month. Semi said worldwide March bookings totaled $1.31 billion.
That figure is 23% below the revised February level of $1.69 billion and 49% below the $2.55 billion in orders posted during the same period last year.
Meanwhile, March shipments totaled $2.04 billion, 11% below February's revised $2.29 billion, but 17% above March 2000's shipment level of $1.74 billion.
US approves ASM Lithography-SVG merger
The merger between ASM Lithography Holding N.V., Veldhoven, Netherlands, and Silicon Valley Group Inc., San Jose, CA, received approval by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). As part of ASML's agreement with CFIUS, the Dutch company commenced a six-month period in which it will explore several strategic alternatives in regard to the SVG subsidiary Tinsley Laboratories, including making a good-faith effort to sell this optical polishing subsidiary or, in the absence of such a sale, operating it under adherence to a set of CFIUS-mandated restrictions.
USA
Numerical Technologies, San Jose, CA, and Intel Corp., Santa Clara, CA, have signed a multimillion dollar technology cross-licensing agreement for advanced photolithography solutions used in the production of semiconductors. Intel now has the right to use Numerical's phase-shifting technology and software for the production of advanced ICs, while Numerical gains access to Intel's related advanced lithography, including phase-shift mask technology.
Dow Corning, Midland, MI, and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Seoul, Korea, will jointly develop and refine interlayer dielectric applications using Dow's XLK Spin-on Dielectric. The agreement was designed to have both companies behind the effort to have XLK meet cutting-edge k=2.0 specifications with problem-free integration, the companies said.
SEH America, Vancouver, WA, laid off 99 employees, or 6% of its work force, as a result of low prices for silicon wafers. The company is contemplating a one-week maintenance shutdown due to market conditions, which would be in addition to the company's annual weeklong maintenance closure, scheduled for late summer.
Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (Semi), San Jose, CA, has joined RosettaNet, a non-profit consortium dedicated to the development and deployment of open Internet-based business standards that align processes within the high-technology trading network. Semi will participate as a voting member on the standards developed by the consortium.
Ball Semiconductor, Allen, TX, and Omron Corp., Tokyo, Japan, will jointly develop miniature sensors using spherical semiconductors. Ball will provide the semiconductor technology, while Omron's advanced sensor technology will enable the sensors to be made extremely small and capable of sensing incline, vibration and acceleration.
Intel Corp., Santa Clara, CA, has lost a bid for a rehearing before a federal appeals court that ruled the company has no license to use Intergraph Corp.'s, computer chip technology within Intel's Pentium product. Intergraph, Huntsville, AL, is suing for royalties, claiming that all three of the Pentium chips contain technology from the Clipper chip, to which Intergraph holds a patent.
JMAR Technologies, San Diego, CA, and Vermont-based Semiconductor Advanced Lithography (SAL), have signed a letter of intent in which JMAR would acquire SAL. According to JMAR, the new JMAR/SAL lithography unit will offer manufacturers of high-speed gallium arsenide semiconductors an XRL processing capability before the end of 2002.
Cypress Semiconductor Corp., San Jose, CA, has satisfied closing conditions for the acquisition of HiBand Semiconductors, Scotts Valley, CA. The acquisition will be accounted for on a purchase basis, and will augment, according to Cypress, the company's capabilities in the areas of high-speed, physical-layer communications and optical communications technology.
Coherent, Santa Clara, CA, plans to acquire DeMaria ElectroOptics Systems (DEOS), Bloomfield, CT, for $22.5 million in cash. According to Coherent, DEOS will be integrated into Coherent's Photonics Group and will continue to operate from Connecticut.
Kulicke & Soffa Industries, Willow Grove, PA, has acquired the outstanding equity interest in Flip Chip Technologies, LLC (FCT) from Delco Electronics Corp., Kokomo, IN. FCT will be wholly owned by K&S. The existing technology transfer agreement with Delco will remain in place.
OSI Systems, Hawthorne, CA, sold its wholly owned subsidiary, Silicon Microstructures, to ELMOS Semiconductor AG, Dortmund, Germany, for $6.5 million.
Integrated Device Technology (IDT), Santa Clara, CA, will acquire Newave Semiconductor Corp., Shanghai, through a cash-for-stock merger. IDT will pay $80 million to acquire strategic design expertise and products in analog and mixed-signal circuit design. Upon regulatory approval, Newave will become a subsidiary of IDT.
Electro Scientific Industries, Portland, OR, has established a representative office in Shanghai, China, which will allow ESI to expand business opportunities and target key strategic customers, the company said. ESI also plans to open an office in Guangzhou, China, but is awaiting appropriate government approvals.
LSI Logic, Milpitas, CA, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Taipei, Tawain, will deploy jointly developed 0.13µm process technology. The agreement also states that both companies will explore collaborative opportunities for next-generation process technology nodes. The companies expect these nodes to be ahead of current industry roadmaps.
Vishay Intertechnology Inc., Malvern, PA, plans to acquire General Semiconductor, Melville, NY, through a stock swap of one newly issued Vishay share for two outstanding General Semiconductor shares. The deal is valued at $466 million, based upon General Semiconductor's 49 million diluted shares outstanding, the company said.
Texas Instruments, Dallas, TX, plans to lay off about 2500, or 6%, of its worldwide work force. These reductions will begin in the second quarter, when the company will take associated special charges. Most of these job eliminations are in support functions and manufacturing. In total, these actions are expected to result in annualized savings of approximately $400 million when completed.
KLA-Tencor Corp., San Jose, CA, plans to purchase Phase Metrics, a supplier of inspection/certification technologies to the data storage industry. The acquisition, for an undisclosed sum, will be accounted for as a purchase. Company officials report that Phase Metrics' tools and technologies will be combined with KLA-Tencor's existing data storage inspection and metrology solutions to create a new corporate division focused exclusively on advanced data storage technologies.
The Electronic Chemicals Division of Ashland Specialty Chemical Company, a division of Ashland Inc., Dublin, OH, plans to open a 40,000 ft2 facility in Carrollton, TX. The complex will support the regional microelectronics industry's needs for cleaning, preventive maintenance and rebuilding of processing equipment components. The proposed structure will be Ashland's largest facility that services semiconductor tool components.
OMM, San Diego, CA, was awarded ISO 9001 certification by Det Norske Veritas (DnV) for its corporate quality management system. Receiving and maintaining ISO certification requires continuous process improvement, which is aimed at achieving customer satisfaction.
JAPAN
Metal Industries, Osaka, and Mitsubishi Materials, Tokyo, plan to merge their silicon businesses by January 2002. The companies will be equal partners in the new joint venture, which will reportedly be the world's second largest silicon supplier, close on the heels of industry leader Shin-Etsu Chemical (SEH). Metal Industries and Mitsubishi Materials have already joined forces to produce 300mm wafers through their joint venture Silicon United Manufacturing Co. But now they figure they need to combine the rest of their silicon business to survive as major suppliers. Together they think they have the potential to challenge SEH's top spot. Shin-Etsu sold $2 billion worth of electronic materials, mostly silicon, for its fiscal year ended March 2000, the company reported. Metal Industries' total electronic materials sales were about $870 million, Mitsubishi's about $800 million for that same period. Both totals were driven mostly by silicon.
Rasa Industries, Tokyo, Japan, has placed a new test-wafer reclamation plant at its Sanbongi factory in Miyagi Prefecture.
With the capacity to produce 10,000 units/month, the company said it has invested $24.6 million toward the construction of the new plant. The facility has been operating on a trial basis since summer 2000.
Mitsubishi Kakoki Kaishi Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, is expanding its machinary business to manufacture Escape manufacturing waste gas abatement systems. Kakoki has obtained domestic sales rights for the system from German firm DAS GmbH.
SES, Tokyo, a Japanese supplier of wet stations, plans to open a sales and service office in Singapore in July. The company says the new office will meet the increasing demand from foundries and Japanese companies in Singapore and Malaysia.
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Mitsubishi Chemical, Tokyo, has formed a joint venture with Honeywell International to produce and market high purity chemicals for semiconductor production in the US. The two companies have been exploring working together since last July, and now plan to develop an alliance to produce and market their chemicals in Southeast Asia as well. Honeywell will put up 60% of the money for the joint venture, while Mitsubishi's US subsidiary, Texas Ultra Pure will provide the remaining 40%. GEM Microelectronics Materials will be headquartered in Arizona. It will focus on making ultrapure (100 parts/trillion) chemicals like sulfuric and hydrochloric acids at plants in Mansfield, TX, and Chandler, AZ.
Nikon Corp., Tokyo, plans to establish a unit selling its used steppers. The company says more than 90% of the 6300 total steppers it's shipped over the years for ICs and LCDs are still in use, so there are not a lot of used models available. But it reports increasing demand for the older equipment, especially of older i-line models.
NEC Corp., Tokyo, along with NEC Electronics, its US semiconductor arm, is closing its advanced fab facility in Roseville, CA, and is laying off 100 employees. Additional reductions in other areas will eliminate 600 more, the company said. NEC has already enacted severe cost cutting measures, although they failed to counter the steep decline in semiconductor sales over the past several months, NEC said. Manufacturing at the Roseville facility will shift its focus from DRAM memory to higher-value LSI and logic devices to meet demand from the growing communications market.
Fujitsu, Tokyo, Japan, will spend $806 million to build a new research and production facility. The facility, aimed at speeding the development of semiconductors, will produce 10,000 200mm wafers/month.
Rasa Industries, Tokyo, Japan, has placed a new test-wafer reclamation plant at its Sanbongi factory in Miyagi Prefecture. With the capacity to produce 10,000 units/month, the company said it has invested $24.6 million toward the construction of the new plant. The facility has been operating on a trial basis since summer 2000.
EUROPE
The SEZ Group, Villach, Austria, and Pure Wafer Ltd., Swansea, UK, have agreed to evaluate double-sided wafer cleaning on 300mm wafers using SEZ spin-process technology. The agreement states that SEZ will supply the beta tools for a period of six months, with a possible extension at Pure Wafer's request.
In order to offset a slowdown in demand for its products, Philips Electronics, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, plans to cut 6000 to 7000 jobs, about 3% of its 219,000 worldwide work force. The company reported a 91 percent drop in 1Q earnings.
BOC Group, Windlesham, Surrey, UK, plans to buy the remaining 45% of semiconductor gas supplier Osaka Sanso Kogyo Ltd., Osaka, Japan, that it doesn't already own, for $130 million. BOC Japan sources say the company hopes to speed up decision-making at Osaka Sanso by making it a wholly owned subsidiary of the BOC Group.
Dubai, one of seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates, will take a 30% stake in a partnership deal with
Intel Corp., San Jose, CA, to build a microchip factory in Germany. Initially, Dubai said that it would take part in the project on the condition that Intel build a plant in the emirate, but due to what Intel called "technical difficulties," the condition could not be met. Intel said it would set up an unspecified project at the recently launched Dubai Internet City.
STMicroelectronics, Geneva, Switzerland, and Hitachi Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, have agreed to establish SuperH, an independent company that will develop and license RISC microprocessor cores. The new company will complete final development of the 64-bit SH-5 processor and take over development of future SH-6 and SH-7 cores.
Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector, Schaumburg, IL, is keeping empty the newly acquired fab shell in Dunfermline, Scotland, while waiting for the chip market to improve. The company had planned to install 0.15µm process equipment into the fab. However, due to Motorola's cut in semiconductor capital spending, the plan has been put on hold.
Agilent Technologies, Boblingen, Germany, has completed its $55 million acquisition of Gefran Silicon Micro
Systems Srl, a subsidiary of Gefran SpA of Provaglio d'Iseo, Italy. The acquisition of the fiber-optic-technology laboratory in Northern Italy is part of Agilent's continuing investment in the high-growth fiber optic area, according to the German firm.
In a deal worth $250 million, Infineon Technologies AG, Munich, Germany, will acquire startup optical IC company
Catamaran Communications Inc., San Jose, CA. Catamaran will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Infineon. This will allow it to maintain its start-up approach, while capitalizing on the synergies with Infineon's existing WAN, fiber optic and high-speed communication business units.
ASIA PACIFIC
Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMI), Shanghai, is set to begin operations in November. SMI is backed by the Shanghai municipal government and a consortium headed by Richard Chang, a Taiwanese chip veteran. In a recent meeting with fund managers, Chang said the company was planning to invest $3.2 billion to build two fabs in Shanghai.
Philips Semiconductor, Eindhoven, Netherlands, is building a new integrated circuit assembly and test plant at the Suzhou Industrial Park in Shanghai. The new IC plant should be completed by 2006 and is expected to create 3500 jobs. Most of the positions, said Philips, will be filled locally. Final capacity will be 750 million units, mostly in high-end BGA and CSP packages. Actual production is to begin as early as 2Q02.
TSMC is considering delaying plans to build two 300mm fabs in southern Taiwan until the economy shows signs of improvement. TSMC had planned to begin construction this year on the two plants. Another 300mm plant already under construction will be completed, but the company will delay equipping the fab, according to reports quoting TSMC president F.C. Tseng. Tseng was quoted recently as saying the semiconductor industry was "walking in the fog."
Dongbu Electronics Company Ltd., Seoul, Korea, has begun volume production of 200mm CMOS wafers at its Class 1 facility in Eumsung, Korea. The first wafer shipments are slated to go to a US fabless chipmaker.
Silicon Integrated Systems Corp., Tainan, Taiwan, has stopped construction of its first 300mm wafer plant in the Tainan Industrial Park due to possible vibration problems expected from a high-speed railway set to run close to the park. Construction on the $1.6 billion plant began last December; Silicon Integrated is looking to build elsewhere.
Applied Materials, Santa Clara, CA, is set to open a new cleanroom manufacturing facility as part of its multiphase manufacturing center in Tainan, Taiwan. Applied also began construction of a new Southeast Asia headquarters in Singapore, at the Changi Business Park.
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Applied to show Quantum system
At Semicon West, Applied Materials will be exhibiting its Quantum ion implantation system designed to address the productivity and control issues that chipmakers will face when forming source/drain structures at 0.13µm geometries and below. The system employs a beamline for efficient transport of low-energy ion beams, and a new extraction technology and differential lens. For more details on Quantum, see the Semicon West Product Preview on p. 177.