Asia/Pacific
09/01/1997
Asia/Pacific
An informal equipment creditors committee comprised of representatives from Applied Materials, GaSonics International, Lam Research Corp., Novellus Systems Inc., and Silicon Valley Group are taking hefty charges to operations in the current quarter after payment negotiations with the Thailand-based Submicron Technology PLC failed. The group had disbanded after Submicron failed to respond to the committee`s concerns, and several of the participating companies have released plans to absorb the lost revenues. The committee had been formed to work out satisfactory delivery and payment terms with Submicron, a unit of Alphatec Group, which has been seeing significant funding problems since a decline in the Thai stock market.
Hsinchu, Taiwan-based United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) will invest $18 billion in six advanced wafer fabs in southern Tainan over the next 10 years, including five 300-mm facilities. The fabs will be built in phases, mostly at the new Tainan Industrial Park. The first facility, a 200-mm fab, is budgeted at $1.98 billion and is slated to begin production in 1999, with an expected capacity of 50,000 wafers/month, using 0.16-0.18-?m design rules in a completely automated environment. The remaining five fabs will be built at a pace of one new 300-mm fab every one to two years. The company expects these fabs to produce 20,000, 300-mm wafers/month each.
LG Semicon Ltd. and Sun Microsystems have completed a formal agreement under which the companies will co-develop Java processors to be manufactured by LG and to be exclusively distributed worldwide by Sun Microsystems. LG will also collaborate with Sun Microsystems on new derivatives of future JavaChip processors.
ITT Cannon, a supplier of electronic components, has increased ownership of its China-based connector manufacturing and assembly joint venture company from 51% to 90%. The joint venture company will continue to be known as ITT Cannon (Zhenjiang) Electronics Co. Ltd. Zhenjiang Connector & Switch Factory, which is ITT Cannon`s China-based joint venture partner, will retain 10% ownership of the joint venture, which currently has 188 employees.
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Japan`s flat panel display companies announce investment plans. With LCD sales expected to soar 41% to 1022 billion yen (about $8.9 billion) this fiscal year, Japan`s top nine LCD suppliers will invest some 246 billion yen (about $2.15 billion) in production facilities this fiscal year (see table). The growth is being fueled by large demand for notebook computers this year and for 13-15-in. desktop monitors in the coming years