Europe

11/01/1996

Europe

ASM Europe, a Netherlands-based semiconductor process equipment manufacturer, has received an order for its Advance 400/3 modular vertical furnace from National Nano Device Laboratory (NDL) in Taiwan. ASM will provide NDL with a customer demonstration model to showcase the technology to the region`s semiconductor industry. The A400/3 is a modular vertical furnace with three chambers: a hydrogen fluoride etch module, and two vertical batch reactors.

AST elektronik GmbH, a Germany-based supplier of RTP equipment, has formed AST elektronik (UK) Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary located in Glasgow. The office will allow AST to provide direct service and sales support in the UK.

FEI Co., Hillsboro, OR, will acquire the assets of Philips Electron Optics BV of The Netherlands under terms of a deal that will see Philips get about 55% of FEI`s stock after the issuance of a substantial number of new shares. Closing is expected by year-end. FEI, a supplier of field emission charged particle beam equipment, will now be able to sell a broader range of systems (including Philips` SEMs and TEMs) and components for design modification and failure analysis. Once the transaction is completed, the combined operations will be headquartered in Hillsboro under the FEI name. The two firms have maintained a relationship since the 1970s, including hardware and software development projects and FEI`s use of the Philips XL SEM as a platform for its focused ion deal and dual electron/ion beam systems.

ASM Lithography (ASML), Eindhoven, The Netherlands, has delivered and installed its first PAS 5500/300 stepper to Micron Technology Inc.`s pilot line Fab IV in Boise, ID. The system is a deep-UV machine capable of processing eighty 200-mm wafers/hour with resolution of =0.25 micron. Micron will use the stepper for continued development of next-generation semiconductor ICs, such as advanced sub-quarter-micron technologies. The PAS 5500/300 system can deliver conventional and off-axis illumination using ASML`s AERIAL illuminator, developed with ASML`s optics partner Carl Zeiss.

Fairchild Technologies GmbH, Vaihingen, Germany, has received a multimillion dollar order for its sub-half-micron Falcon photoresist wafer processing systems from Siemens AG. Siemens will install part of the order in a new wafer fab to support a production start of 20,000 wafers/month. The new production line will open in February. The rest of the order will be installed at Siemens` research and development center. Fairchild has sold the Falcon processing tools to major semiconductor producers in Europe, Korea, and the US.