USA

09/01/1998

USA

Applied Materials says it will have a quarterly order rate of just $600 million to $675 million in its current 3Q, substantially lower than its earlier guidance of $950 million, and below Wall Street estimates that had been in the $800 million to $900 million range. Applied said its customers are delaying orders, rescheduling deliveries, and cutting spending on support. Factors cited are the Asian financial crisis, weak PC sales, and DRAM overcapacity.

In addition, Applied Materials has transferred its Precision 7700 5-in. epi reactor product to Moore Epitaxial Inc., San Jose, CA, which will now sell, manufacture, and support the system (which has been renamed the MT-7700). Moore has been producing the tools for Applied for about nine months, and will make a number of upgrades including increasing the batch size from 18 to 24.

Novellus Systems Inc. has laid off about 10% of its work force (about 170-180 people), citing capital spending cuts by chipmakers and a planned consolidation of its thin films operation. The Palo Alto-based thin film system manufacturing operation has been moved to Novellus` base in San Jose. The move had been envisioned since Novellus acquired the business from Varian Associates last year. All 450 people employed by the unit joined Novellus when the purchase was finalized, and just under half of the announced workforce cuts will come from the PVD operation. The remaining cuts will be taken from manufacturing and other support functions.

US Filter Corp. has acquired Mega Systems and Chemicals Inc., Chandler, AZ, a CMP slurry distribution and blending systems supplier, and merged the privately-held company with its USF Kinetics ultra-pure process systems business group. Mega CEO Dick Roney said that the company was seeking an outside equity investment. Mega reached $30 million in sales last year. US Filter has acquired a number of firms, including the Kinetics process piping systems operation, as part of an effort to become a leading player in the ultra-pure process systems market. US Filter is also planning to buy mass flow controller supplier Unit Instruments. Unit will become a subsidiary of the Kinetics Group.

In its second significant restructuring this year, Lam Research will cut its workforce 20-25% and absorb a charge of between $55 million to $65 million to cover the severance costs and facility consolidations. In February, Lam laid off about 700 people. At that time, the company said it would begin consolidating manufacturing operations as it pulled resources out of its thermal CVD and flat panel display businesses. The cost of those changes resulted in a charge of about $85 million. This latest restructuring was initiated because of a further weakening in the order outlook, and includes both layoffs and facility consolidations.

A US district court judge in Delaware has upheld a jury`s decision to award $3.1 million in damages to CFM Technologies, West Chester, PA, after finding STEAG Micro Tech infringed CFM`s US 761 drying patent. According to the judgment, STEAG, Austin, TX, is also prohibited from importing, using, or selling any of its products that use the disputed drying technology. STEAG plans to appeal the ruling. STEAG MicroTech GmbH, Pliezhausen, Germany, recently filed invalidity lawsuits against CFM Technologies` counterpart patents to its US patent in a number of European countries.

In addition, the Delaware district court granted CFM`s motion for reargument on YieldUp International Inc.`s motion for summary judgment that YieldUp has not infringed a US patent by CFMT Inc. and licensed by CFM Technologies. General Scanning and Robotic Vision Systems Inc. (RVSI) have reached a settlement in one of their lawsuits related to General Scanning`s 1996 acquisition of View Engineering. General Scanning, Watertown, MA, has agreed not to compete in the semiconductor lead inspection market for 10 years, and to license its 2D and 3D vision technology "solely and exclusively for RVSI`s use in the inspection of leads, pins, balls, bumps, and other present and future device interconnection leads." RVSI, Canton, MA, will pay General Scanning $3.75 million as part of the deal. The suit had charged General Scanning with making use of improperly obtained information in the buyout, a charge denied by the company.

Orion Equipment, Beverly, MA, has entered into a strategic relationship for ion implant development with Applied Materials. Gary Robertson, managing director of business development for Applied`s Thermal Processes and Implants business group, said the Orion group would "focus on advanced implant technologies." The development work will report to the Ion Implant Division, based in Horsham, England.

Johnson Matthey, Wayne, PA, has combined its US- and UK-based hydrogen purification businesses into a single organization, the Hydrogen Technology group. Management of the UK-based Hydrogen Engineering Applications will transfer from the company`s Electronic Materials Division to its Catalytic Systems Division, where it will be combined with the division`s existing hydrogen business to form a global gas purification business unit.

Semiconductor equipment and materials distributor Metron Technology, Burlingame, CA, has completed a merger with T.A. Kyser Co., a distributor in the high purity and industrial markets. Under the stock swap transaction, Kyser became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Metron, and will operate as a US division of Metron with its existing management team. The deal is expected to create one of the largest international semiconductor equipment and materials distributors.

MRS Technology, Chelmsford, MA, has filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 bankruptcy codes, but VP and cofounder Jack Steele said work is still underway to avert the proceedings and launch MRS into the high density interconnect (HDI) market. Steele said the company was forced to seek protection under bankruptcy laws after negotiations with a potential HDI partner fell through. MRS recently announced its intention to become a player in the HDI market, and leave behind efforts in the flat panel display lithography market.

Olin Microelectronics Materials and Wacker Silicones Corp. are planning to jointly produce and sell CMP slurries and customized waste management processes. Under the agreement, the two firms will offer ILD, STI, and polysilicon slurries produced at Wacker`s Adrian, MI, facility. Tungsten and copper layer slurries are also in development.

IBM Microelectronics is ramping a copper interconnect process on sub-0.25-?m devices at its Burlington, VT, facility, using the advanced metal technology for high-end logic devices including proprietary chips for the company`s server group. IBM has also licensed its electroplating technology to Novellus Systems, San Jose, CA, for use in that company`s Damascus suite of tools, which includes Lam Research etchers and IPEC CMP equipment.

Rockwell International is planning to spin-off to shareholders its $1.3 billion Semiconductor Systems unit, including fabs in California and Colorado, and assembly facilities in Texas and Mexico. The move is part of an overall company reorganization under which Rockwell will also eliminate 3800 jobs from its nonchipmaking operations and absorb a $625 million special charge. Under the spin-off, slated for completion by year-end, Semiconductor Systems will become a separately traded public company. The spin-off includes three fabs, two assembly operations, a number of marketing and engineering companies, and about 7000 employees.

In a stock and debt assumption deal, Asyst Technologies, Fremont, CA, is planning to acquire Hine Design, Sunnyvale, CA, a wafer handling robot maker with specific capabilities in harsh environment applications, such as CMP and copper processing automation. The transaction includes a $12 million cash purchase of stock and the assumption of $12 million worth of debt liability. Hine Design has about 100 employees.

Photomask supplier Photronics Inc. has put a hold on its plans to build a new mask fabrication facility in Hillsboro, OR. The mask shop was originally scheduled to start production by the end of 1998, but is now seen coming online in late 1999. With industry growth dampened, Photronics now feels it can provide the necessary technological and volume support to Pacific Northwest customers from existing facilities in California and Texas, and from a shop in Arizona being set up as a result of the acquisition of the Motorola mask shop there.

With an eye toward broadening its franchise in the transistor formation end of IC production, Mattson Technologies, Fremont, CA, has agreed to acquire epi reactor producer Concept Systems, also of Fremont, in a stock deal worth about $4.5 million. The $10 million firm will be merged into a new Mattson unit, Concept-HTP, which will also include epi technology that has been under development at Mattson for about two years.

A new consulting firm, Technology Risk Consulting (TRC) Services LLC, San Jose, CA, is offering toolmakers and chip companies a way to evaluate process tool fire risks beyond and independent of insurance industry recommendations. The firm most recently worked with a number of companies in evaluating a new poly-flow engineering wet bench constructed of a Factory Mutual-approved post-chlorinated polyvinyl chloride material.

FAS Technologies Ltd., Dallas, TX, a supplier of extrusion coating systems, has supplied Motorola Inc. with its FAS-tok extrude & spin coating technology, developed in a joint venture with Tokyo Ohka Kogyo (tok). The systems clean, coat, and develop photoresist layers for field emission displays (FEDs) and reduce chemical waste. The systems will be used in Motorola`s new FED manufacturing division based in Tempe, AZ. In addition, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington has held that Cybor Corp. infringed a patent held by FAS Technologies for a dual-stage pumping and filtration system.

EMCORE Corp., Somerset, NJ, has received 11 orders for its TurboDisc MOCVD (metal organic chemical vapor deposition) systems. Six orders were for the new SpectraBlue gallium nitride production systems, and five were for the high output, low cost/wafer Enterprise 400 systems. The orders, which also included customer-specific epitaxial VCSEL wafers, were shipped to customers in Asia and North America.

AutoSimulations Inc., Bountiful, UT, a developer of simulation and real-time scheduling software, has seen its Real Time Dispatcher (RTD) successfully used by Samsung Electronics for scheduling, taking inter- and intra-bay material movement into consideration in Samsung`s facility in Kiheung, South Korea. RTD is part of AutoSimulation`s AutoSched productivity family, which is fully integrated with major MES systems, such as FACTORYworks, PROMIS, and WorkStream.

Aehr Test Systems, Mountain View, CA, a supplier of test and burn-in equipment, has received an order from Texas Instruments (TI) for enhanced MAX dynamic burn-in systems. TI will use the systems in its digital signal processing group. The systems include low-voltage capabilities and increased I/O channel capacity.

Kinetico Inc., Newbury, OH, has received contracts for eight ion exchange and Epoc microfiltration water recycling/metal recovery systems. The closed loop, high-purity water recycling systems are designed to recycle up to 95% wafer dicing/backgrind and plating rinse water. The systems will recycle about 250 million gallons of water/year. Contracts were received from companies in Thailand, Mexico, Philippines, Malta, Singapore, and California.

Credence Systems Corp., Fremont, CA, a maker of automatic test equipment, has installed a ValStar Series VS 2000 test system at Xilinx Inc., which will use the system to test its next generation of high-density field programmable gate arrays in a volume production environment.

Semiconductor Equipment Corp., Moorpark, CA, has installed a Model 410 flip chip die bonder at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, CA, for use in cutting edge technology applications by the institute in concert with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Microelectronics Laboratory of Hughes Research Laboratories, and the University of Michigan. The system will be used to perform prototype development and characterization studies for next generation laminate circuits and packaging techniques involving flip chip technology.

JMAR Industries, San Diego, CA, has received an additional $950,000 in contract funding from the US Army Research Lab and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for the development of its picosecond x-ray point source (PXS). The funds will be used to scale the source to higher power levels for use in x-ray lithography. This is the second installment of a larger pact; company officials expect to negotiate further funding in the near future.

Under a joint development agreement, KLA-Tencor Corp. will participate in the Belgium-based research group IMEC`s Industrial Affiliation Program as an equipment supplier. The agreement will allow KLA-Tencor to incorporate its advanced metrology tools, such as the 8100 CD SEM and ASET-F5 thin film measurement tool, into IMEC`s R&D program. Working with IMEC, said Michael Kahn, VP of KLA-Tencor`s European operations, will allow for the creation of "advanced yield improvement strategies" and "new benchmarks for process transfer technology."

BOC Edwards will supply a sub-fab vacuum pump system to the Siemens/Motorola joint venture Semiconductor 300 in Dresden, Germany. Included in the order is a central monitoring system that is networked to every pump in the sub-fab and provides real time data and analysis. In addition, BOC Edwards will provide PECVD process equipment to Motorola for its MOS9 project in Scotland.