Worldwide highlights
10/01/1999
Market researchers see boom in 2001. Two new forecasts for the semiconductor equipment market suggest that while some improvement is being seen now, there will be no full-boom period until late 2000 or 2001. Re searchers Dataquest, San Jose, CA, and The Information Network, New Tripoli, PA, both see restrained capital spending over the next 18 months with continued excess DRAM capacity; the latter firm expects a short-lived recovery in equipment bookings in the next few quarters. Dataquest said the semiconductor equipment market will see a slow but steady recovery, with the end of 2000 pegged as the beginning of a banner growth period for toolmakers. The Information Network suggested that equipment bookings will rise to a peak in 1Q00, and then drop to a low in 4Q00 before beginning another surge.
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Chip sales hesitate in June. Global semiconductor sales totaled $11.22 billion in June, rising 13.6% over year-ago levels but slipping 0.6% on a month-to-month basis, according to a report from the SIA and the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics organization. Prior to June, monthly chip sales had risen for three consecutive months; the monthly totals have been generally on the upswing since July, 1998, when they bottomed at $9.67 billion, but have experienced several downward perturbations like June's. The slight month-to-month drop is somewhat surprising, as June is an "end of quarter" month when sales generally tick up. The Americas, Japan, and Asia-Pacific all posted small month-to-month gains (see table), but European producers saw a decline of 3.7%. The SIA attributed Europe's down performance to "continual troubles with currency depreciation." All figures are three-month rolling averages.
USA
SELA, the manufacturer of automated scanning electron microscope (SEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM) sample preparation systems, has announced a partnership with charged particle beam system supplier FEI Co. to demonstrate complete TEM sample preparation. The demonstration matched SELA's TEMstation with FEI's focused ion beam FIB 200TEM workstation, creating a TEM sample preparation solution that allows TEM-ready samples to be produced in less than two hours.
Arch Chemicals, the microelectronics materials unit spun out from chemicals firm Olin earlier this year, is planning on becoming a more formidable player in CMP slurry supply. Jim LaCasse, VP/GM of Arch Semiconductor Photopolymers, said Arch expects to extend its year-old joint development project with Wacker Silicones, a major producer of fumed silica, into a more formal arrangement, probably in the form of a joint venture. Specifically, Arch is hoping to become a second-source player for fumed silica oxide slurry, second to leader Cabot, and to become a primary copper slurry supplier with its proprietary fumed silica-based copper slurry.
Mitsubishi Materials Corp. has shut down its three-year old Cybeq Nano Technologies (CNT) CMP operation in San Jose, CA, and will transfer CNT's intellectual property and key technologists to a new alliance with CMP market leader Ebara Corp. The Mitsubishi/Ebara joint operation will be known as Multi Planar Technologies and will focus on CMP R&D work. As a result of the CNT shutdown, Mitsubishi has formed a CMP maintenance division to handle CNT's warranty and service obligations for existing customers.
San Jose-based FPD test equipment company Photon Dynamics has signed a definitive agreement to acquire CR Technology, a Laguna Nigel, CA, developer of x-ray and optical inspection systems for semiconductor and PCB applications. Photon will give 2 million newly issued shares of stock, worth about $27 million at recent prices. Closing is expected in Q4. Photon Dynamics said the buy would help diversify its geographic sales base into North America, provide good sales growth potential, and also bring better inspection capabilities to FPD manufacturers as they seek defect-free bonding on glass substrates. From CR's point of view, the deal gives them access to Photon's Asian infrastructure and image processing know-how; company president Richard Amtower will stay on to head up CR as a wholly owned subsidiary after closing.
Brooks Automation has agreed to acquire two automation software units, AutoSimulations and Auto-Soft, from Daifuku America Corp. The buyouts, which were expected to close by the end of September, call for Daifuku to receive a $27 million cash payment and $32 million worth of stock, with Brooks also assuming unspecified liabilities. AutoSimulations, Bountiful, UT, produces robotic and material handling simulation, scheduling and real-time dispatching software; Auto-Soft specializes in materials handling and systems integration for chipmakers, including inventory control, MES system integration, and storage
etrieval system management. The firms have combined annual revenues of about $40 million, said a Brooks spokesman, and both have been operationally profitable since their inception (AutoSimulations dates to 1982, Auto-Soft to 1985).
Sputtered Films, Santa Barbara, CA, has shed one of its two PVD lines, selling off its Shamrock sputtering system line to Applied Science and Technology (ASTeX), Woburn, MA, in a cash deal valued at $6 million. The deal allows Sputtered Films to focus on its remaining PVD line, the Endeavor sputtering system, noted Peter Clarke, Sputtered Films president. The Shamrock system will become part of ASTeX's newly formed Integrated Solutions Group, headed up by senior VP Stanley Burg.
California-based VLSI Standards Inc. has signed a licensing agreement with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for commercial rights to MIT Maskworks technology. The calibration standard supplier plans to employ the technology in the production of reference wafers characterizing the chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) process. CMP PlanaRef, the first of several products that VLSI will release, analyzes pattern-dependent variation in dielectric CMP on a number of area, density, and pitch structures. Other products planned include a software package, and a reference wafer that will support CMP process development for damascene metal.
CMP system manufacturer Strasbaugh, San Luis Obispo, CA, has announced a technology partnership with wafer clean supplier Verteq, which will supply its Goldfinger noncontact, integrated dry-in/dry-out cleaning system to Strasbaugh. It is available for 200mm and 300mm oxide and tungsten applications; development is also under way for copper. Separately, Strasbaugh has formed a technology and OEM partnership with Luxtron Corp., Santa Clara, CA, to develop an advanced multisensing endpoint detection control system for CMP applications. The first phase of the deal has already been solidified with evaluation of Luxtron's motor current sensing technology in Strasbaugh's 6DS-SP CMP planarizer. Later phases will integrate optical, temperature, and film thickness capabilities.
Tokyo Electron Arizona Inc. (TAZ), a subsidiary of Japan's largest supplier of semiconductor equipment, Tokyo Electron Ltd., confirmed a leak of chlorine trifluoride gas at its Gilbert, AZ, facility in August. TAZ uses small quantities of the toxic gas to clean its chip-manufacturing tools. A faulty internal valve within the gas abatement system was responsible for the problem; the valve was replaced, and additional shutoff valves added to the gas system as a precaution. Five employees who were working in the cleanroom near the source of the leak and were exposed to a small concentration of the gas were examined at a local hospital and released. Another 60 employees were evacuated.
Eaton Semiconductor Equipment Operations (SEO), Beverly, MA, has shipped a fully operational FusionES3 enhanced strip plasma asher to a global chipmaker. The tool, created for ad vanced technology nodes, is reportedly the only plasma asher to successfully complete I300I evaluation.
Excimer laser supplier Cymer Inc., San Diego, CA, has formed a Scientific Advisory Board to review the company's R&D programs and provide guidance in technology development. Board members include: Daniel Birx, president of Advanced Pulse Power Technologies; Nigel Farrar, advanced lithography project leader at Hewlett-Packard; Joseph Langston, advanced lithography department manager at Intel; William Oldham, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley; and Steef Wittekoek, a retired executive scientist, formerly of ASM Lithography. Membership on the board is by personal decision and is not endorsed by affiliated companies.
As part of a divestiture of its cleanrooms business, Clestra Cleanroom, Syracuse, NY, has sold its components division to Gordon Inc., and its air conditioning manufacturing business to Floratech Industries. Gordon, Bossier City, LA, a cleanroom ceiling grid and wall system manufacturer, is expected to move the acquired Clestra operation to its facility in Louisiana. Floratech, also of Syracuse, will combine Clestra's air conditioning manufacturing business with its existing product line, and operate the businesses under the name Cleanroom Systems Inc.
Asia/Pacific
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. said it now expects to make "normal capital expenditures" of just under 16 billion Taiwan dollars (about $498 million) this year, up about 900 million Taiwan dollars (about $28 million) from earlier estimates, as well as an additional $90 million in spending at the WaferTech joint venture facility in the United States. When accelerated spending on the firm's Fab V project is included, total expenditures are seen at about $1.27 billion.
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A new survey from the Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan suggests that semiconductor and LCD makers in Japan will invest 7.4% more in new equipment during the current fiscal 1999 than in fiscal 1998, with increases averaging 15.8% in the following three fiscal years. Sales of mask- and reticle-making equipment in Japan are seen as especially poor this year, with a forecasted 22% decline following last year's 23.5% drop. Mask shops in Japan are consolidating, cutting the available market. The same report found that Japan-based equipment companies expect their business to increase about 14% during FY99 (which began April 1), with producers of wafer manufacturing equipment anticipating the biggest jump at 29.3% (see table). This will presumably be driven by export sales, as the Japanese market is seen dropping 7.6% prior to a huge surge in FY00 and FY01. Wafer processing suppliers, who account for the vast majority of revenues, expect a rise of 14%. Suppliers of tools for mask and reticle production anticipate a sales rise of just 3.9%.
Surface preparation supplier SCP Global Technologies (SCP), Boise, ID, has formed a joint venture with Singapore-based equipment distributor Singatrust Pte. Ltd. The new company, SCP Global Technologies Asia Pte. Ltd., will be located in Singapore, and will sell, distribute, and service SCP surface preparation tools throughout Asia. Over the next 12 months, SCP Asia will establish a parts and service center, training center, applications laboratory, and manufacturing facility, hoping eventually to develop, manufacture, and assemble automated surface preparation tools under an agreement with SCP. Industry veteran Robert Glass has been named president of SCP Asia, and has relocated from the U.S. to head the new operation.
Japan
Sony Corp. and photomask/printing supplier Toppan Printing, both of Tokyo, have agreed to collaborate on next-generation photomask development, starting Oct. 1. Toppan will borrow all of Sony's existing photomask production equipment, some 40 Sony workers, and the cleanroom facility of Sony's existing mask shop at the company's Atsugi technology center. Toppan will add some of the latest maskmaking equipment and have total responsibility for making photomasks there exclusively for Sony; the company is expected to invest some x3 billion (about US$26 million) for new maskmaking tools at the Atsugi facility.
Longtime flash player Fujitsu-AMD Semiconductor Ltd.(FASL) is increasing flash production in Fukushima Prefecture from an average of 9 million chips/month last year to an average of 21 million chips/month this year. Mitsubishi will shift from 16 to 32Mbit by early next year, when the 32Mbit flash chip production will be at the 3 or 3.5 million chips/ month level. Separately, Sanyo, collaborating with US-based Silicon Storage Technology, has started sampling "Flashbank," a chip containing 16Mbit flash memory and 64kB of EEPROM.
Sharp Corp, Osaka, will increase its flash memory production this fall to the 20 million chip/month (8Mbit equivalents) level, up some 30% from the present level in Sharp's Fukuyama Plant, in Hiroshima Prefecture. Plans also call for merchant sales of 32Mbit flash memories to begin in the fall. The 32Mbit devices are now being used only for the firm's products. Major output will thus shift from 16Mbit to 32Mbit.
The Japan Society of New Metals, Tokyo, has reported that silicon crystal production in Japan for the second quarter of calendar 1999 (April-June) was up 6.8% over the same period of the previous year, with sales of silicon crystals up 4.5% from the same period of last year. Compared with the October-December 1998 period, the trough of the recent downturn, production of silicon crystals for April-June 1999 was up 27%, and sales were up 19%.
Mitsubishi Electric, Tokyo, said its total semiconductor production for FY99 is expected to be x510 billion (about $4.4 billion), up 6.3% from the previous FY. Going forward, plans call for sales of x570 billion for FY2000, up 11.8%, and x650 billion for 2001, up 14.0%. Mitsubishi also said it will increase DRAM-embedded system LSIs from the present x70 billion to x137 billion in 2001. The firm expects to expand the existing system LSI (system on a chip) development collaboration program with Matsushita to joint manufacturing level in the near future.
Toshiba will also shift DRAM production to flash memory production in Japan. The DRAM ratio (DRAM output over total output) in its Yokkaichi Plant, near Nagoya, (the company's 64Mbit DRAM manufacturing base) will be reduced from the present level of about 50% to one-third by September 2000, and to one-quarter in March, 2001. The balance will be filled with flash memory production.
Rohm and Yamaha have jointly established a new company in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture. Named Rohm Hamamatsu, the new firm will be responsible for operation of Yamaha's Tenryu Semiconductor Plant, which soon will be purchased by Rohm, and start operation again this October for Rohm. The new firm is capitalized at x400 million, owned 95% by Rohm and 5% by Yamaha. Rohm has appointed K. Murayama, Yamaha's former plant manager, as president.
Europe
The Institute for Semiconductor Physics (IHP), Europe's most advanced research institute in its field, is under construction in Frankfurt/Oder, Germany. The project is being funded by the European Union, the German federal government, and the government of the
Brandenburg region. The facility's cleanroom is built by Jenoptik subsidiary M+W Zander in partnership with Siegle + Epple. The contract is valued at some DM15 million. Starting late this year, IHP will join US-based Motorola on research projects aimed at developing 0.18µm technology for next generation wireless communications systems. The primary focus of the research will be new materials such as silicon-germanium-carbon.
Belgian research consortium IMEC and Custom Silicon Configuration Services (CS2), the Brussels-based semiconductor assembly and test foundry, have signed a licensing agreement for transfer of an advanced wafer-level, thin-film processing technology. The transfer includes flip chip bumping, flip chip redistribution techniques, wafer-level packaging, and high-density packaging with embedded passives for RF front-end applications. These technology modules, developed by IMEC's High Density Interconnection and Advanced Packaging Group, are currently being adapted to the production environment and will extend CS2's area array capability into higher value-added system-on-a-package (SOP) solutions.
ASM International N.V., Bilthoven, The Netherlands, has completed its acquisition of Microchemistry, a supplier of atomic layer chemical vapor deposition (ALCVD) equipment. Arthur del Prado, CEO of ASM, said that he was "very pleased with this important addition to ASM's portfolio of leading semiconductor equipment. ALCVD is the next logical development in ASM's core business."
Jenoptik AG subsidiary M+W Zander, Stuttgart/Nuremburg, Germany, which plans, erects, and operates chip facilities, and BMG Engineering AG, Zurich, Switzerland, a supplier of chemical risk analysis and efficiency engineering, have established a joint venture consulting company, E4 Technologies AG, based in Zurich. Zander holds 70% and BMG 24% of the new corporation, which will analyze the cost, energy, and mass flows of existing chip factories. One of its first clients is Semiconductor300, a 300mm pilot line and joint venture of Infineon Technologies and Motorola.
Quartz glass supplier SICO Corp., Jena, Germany, has announced that it is building a 1400-square-meter facility for the production of fused silicon in Bad Bleiberg in the Silicon Alps region of Austria. The company plans to invest 50 million schillings (3.64 million euros) in the plant, which will eventually house 35 employees, 12 smelting ovens, and associated processing equipment. Three of the company's ovens are expected to be in use in December; the rest should come on line next year.
Atomika Instruments America Inc., a subsidiary of Atomika Instruments GmbH of Germany, is expanding its North American operations, with a re-organization of the company's structure. Wolfgang Berneike, formerly product manager of the parent company (based in the Munich suburb of Oberschleissheim), will become president, coordinating and supervising all US activities; Lanny M. Brown, VP since 1997, will be responsible for sales and marketing in the US. Sanjay Patel, a SIMS application specialist, will have responsibility for on-site application customer support; and North American service manager Mike Murehead will manage technical customer support.
FINANCIAL BRIEFS
Fairchild Semiconductor Int'l, the chipmaking unit spun out from National Semiconductor in 1997 to Sterling Holding Company, has gone public. An offering of 20 million shares at $18.50/share began in August, with shares trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Proceeds totaled roughly $370 million.
Cabot Corp. said it would pursue an IPO of a 15% stake in its microelectronic materials business as part of a broad suite of "value enhancement initiatives." In a statement, Cabot said the IPO will "put that business in a position to be more competitive in its markets." Products include CMP slurries, dielectrics, polishing pads, and other offerings. Details on timing and size of the IPO were unavailable at press time. The microelectronics business unit is part of the firm's Specialty Chemicals and Materials Group, which posted an operating profit of $62.2 million in the quarter ended June 30.
SIMOX wafer producer Ibis Technology Corp. closed its previously announced public offering of one million shares of common stock, issued and sold by Ibis at $27/share. The company intends to use the proceeds for R&D, capital expenditures, working capital, and general corporate purposes.
Massachusetts-based Robotic Vision Systems Inc. (RVSI), a supplier of machine-vision-based semiconductor inspection equipment, has completed equity financing with a group of institutional investors for net proceeds of approximately $6.7 million in common stock and common stock purchase warrants. RVSI chairman/CEO Pat V. Costa said the company will use the money for working capital, enabling its Semiconductor Equipment Group to keep pace with an upturn in the capital equipment market. The group has recently shown strong growth in lead- and grid-scanning unit orders and tape-and-reel and tray-to-tape media transfer systems.
Pfeiffer Vacuum, Asslar, Germany, will use accumulated cash assets in excess of DEM 100 million (about $55 million) for an increasing effort to buy back its own shares and retire them from the market. The company, which went public in July, 1996, had the original intention of using the cash for acquisitions, such as the recent buy of pump service organization Semivac. The company said another larger acquisition was planned, but has been cancelled, partly because of anti-trust issues. A Pfeiffer spokeswoman would not reveal the name of the company in question.
 Quarterly Briefs |
Applied Materials, Santa Clara, CA, has approved a new stockholder rights plan, replacing a previous version that expired earlier this year. Under its terms, if a person or group acquires 20% or more of Applied's outstanding common stock, each remaining right will entitle its holder to purchase company common stock having a market value equal to twice the exercise price of $375. The new plan will be reviewed by a committee of independent directors every three years.
 Quarterly Briefs |
Tru-Si Technologies, a developer of plasma-based wafer thinning technology, has received $10 million in second-round financing following successful demonstration of an alpha-level tool for over 30 chipmakers in the last year. The Sunnyvale, CA, firm said it can thin finished wafers to about 100 microns, handle bumped wafers, and open contact pad openings. Funds are expected to be used to add management, triple its manufacturing facilities, expand sales/distribution, and refine its R&D program to prepare for shipment of production-worthy tools.