Feb 99 news items

02/01/1999

NEWS

Tokyo Electron Ltd. (TEL) is feeling the industry downturn in many regions, but US sales are continuing to increase this year, says Barry Rapozo, president of Tokyo Electron America (TEA). With TEL`s strategic effort to boost US sales, TEA is adding support personnel, but does plan cost controls. Meanwhile, TEL`s Japan operation has not had a

layoff, and hopes to avoid one.

Institute of Microelectronics (IME), Singapore, and Oki Techno Centre Singapore (OTCS), a subsidiary of

Oki Electric Industry, Japan, have entered collaborative projects on the development of radio frequency ICs

in CMOS technology. The intended application is for the wide-band CDMA standard for the next generation wireless communications. Over the past few years, IME has undertaken several projects for Oki and OTCS for the development of RF ICs for various applications.

Komatsu Electronic Metals Co. Ltd., Japan, has purchased a SiGen PIII plasma immersion ion implantation system from Silicon Genesis Corp. (SiGen), Campbell, CA. Komatsu will use the

system at its R&D facility for Genesis Process production qualification work for silicon-on-insulator wafer manufacturing. In a related move, Komatsu and SiGen have signed a joint research agreement of PIII technology use for the implantation of oxygen into silicon, a fundamental step in the oxygen implantation process called SPIMOX (separation by plasma implantation of oxygen).

MicroUnity Engineering Systems, Sunnyvale, CA, has established two distribution relationships in Asia for its MaskTools OPC software. In Taiwan, MicroUnity has selected GTI, Hsinchu; and in Singapore, the firm has selected Intrasil. Roger Caldwell, VP of silicon technology for the company, said MicroUnity is "continuing to expand our reach into the world`s semiconductor manufacturing regions."

Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology and Seoul National University have ordered multiple Shuttlelock plasma processing systems from Plasma-Therm Inc., St. Petersburg, FL. The systems incorporate inductively coupled plasma process technologies.

Kulicke & Soffa Industries (K&S), Willow Grove, PA, has established a Customer Resource Center in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. The center will offer automatic wire bonder rebuilds, spare parts warranty inventory, training, and parts repair. It will eventually house the Taiwan sales and service organizations and K&S packaging materials representatives. K&S also operates a Customer Resource Center in Laguna, Philippines; an Application Engineering and Resource Center in Singapore; and a Technology Center in Tokyo.

Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, Singapore, has achieved ISO-14001 environmental certification for four fabrication facilities for continuous improvement in energy, waste, water, and raw materials. Chartered`s Fabs 1, 2, and 3 in Singapore received certification, as well as Silicon Manufacturing Partners, the joint venture facility owned by Lucent Technologies and Chartered.

TransEDA Inc., Los Gatos, CA, a developer of verification software for ICs and systems on a chip, has added four distributors to its worldwide sales team - SPS-DA in Singapore, TimeWave in Taiwan, SoftPower in China and Southeast Asia, and Silicon System Solutions in Australia. The distributors will market, sell, and support TransEDA`s verification tools to a growing ASEAN region system-on-chip design market.

Toshiba America Electronic Com-ponents has delivered 0.20-?m 256-Mbit SDRAM samples to IBM. Toshiba is also on track to begin commercial introduction of a 0.175-?m 256-Mbit SDRAM by 4Q99. The SDRAM samples were sent to IBM`s Memory Technology & Quali- fication group last fall. The device is targeted initially for IBM`s high-end servers and workstations. By 2001, 256-Mbit DRAMS will enter mainstream, high-volume applications.

South Korea`s Samsung, Hyundai, and LG Semicon, are reportedly resuming "normal operations," according to a news report by Asia Pulse. Since June, all three firms had been suspending production one week a month; plans now call for the companies to return to full production practices pending healthy chip prices.

Japan Energy Corp., a maker of sputtering targets and consumable parts, has opened a sales and technical support location in Taiwan. The company will incorporate the activity of Japan Energy`s long-time local sales representative, Challentech.

Praxair Inc., Danbury, CT, and China Petrochemical Development Corp. (CPDC) have formed the joint venture Praxair Chemax Semiconductor Materials to provide semiconductor gas, equipment, services, and related technologies to the growing Taiwan microelectronics industry. The new company will be majority-owned by Praxair in partnership with Chemax International Corp., a wholly-owned subsidiary of CPDC.

Fujitsu Microelectronics will close its Durham fab in Newton Aycliffe, UK, where about 570 employees will be affected. In the meantime, Fujitsu is seeking a buyer or partner for the fab. In addition, Fujitsu has decided to move production of future DRAM generations outside of Japan. The 256-Mbit generation of parts will be made by Fujitsu in the US, due to the lower costs of construction, personnel, utilities, and other items.

Applied Science and Technology Inc., Woburn, MA, a provider of power and gas systems for semiconductor production, and ENI, a division of Astec America Inc., a maker of radio frequency and DC power conversion products, have agreed to provide direct sales and support in Taiwan. The joint activity, called ENI ASTeX Power Alliance, is located in the Science Based Industrial Park in Hsinchu, Taiwan.

The Advanced Semiconductor Equipment Technology Group in Japan, a government-funded research organization in which a number of chipmakers and equipment developers are participating, is setting up an EUV program. It will be directed by Hitachi lithographer Shinji Okazaki, with headquarters at ASET`s Atsugi, Japan, facility and further operations at Nikon`s Sagamihara Works and Himeji Institute of Technology. EUV, which uses the 13-nm wavelength, is one possible successor to optical lithography for design rules of 0.1 ?m and below.