Europe

11/01/1998

Europe

Siemens AG is making a rapid exit from the 16-Mbit DRAM market with plans to close its 15-month old DRAM fab in North Tyneside, England. The chipmaker`s semiconductor group recently reported losses totaling more than DM1 billion ($564 million) and suffered a significant setback when Taiwan`s Mosel Vitelic ended a contract to buy 50% of the UK fab`s output for the next 10 years. With the exception of a 16-Mbit DRAM joint venture with IBM in France, the company is converting its existing lines to 64-Mbit DRAMs, and plans to sample 256-Mbit DRAMs in 1Q99.

DuPont Photomasks is planning to install a new production line capable of producing photomasks supporting 0.25-?m design rules at its Rousset, France, production facility. The project should be operational in the 4Q of this year. DuPont also plans to expand its cleanroom in Rousset to accommodate an entirely new production line supporting the manufacture of photomasks used for printing 0.18-?m lines. Completion of this portion of the project is expected in the second half of 1999.

Boin GmbH, Tomerdingen, Germany, a start-up company that develops metrology software, and STEAG AST Elektronik GmbH, a supplier of advanced rapid thermal processing systems, have presented a new method of equipment control presented at the MRS meeting in Strasbourg, France. The paper explains a new method using a special mathematical algorithm to separate preprocess and process uniformity on semiconductor wafers.