In the news
04/01/2001
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Unitive announces venture in Taiwan
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. - Unitive Advanced Semiconductor Packaging has opened a new bumping facility in Hsin Chu Industrial Park, Hsin-Chu Hsien, Taiwan. Unitive Semiconductor Taiwan Corp. (UST) will operate the state-of-the-art wafer-level packaging and solder bumping facility. UST has completed production qualification and is currently ramping volume production for initial customers. UST is a joint venture company established between Unitive and a set of Taiwanese partners.
The new UST facility currently has an annual capacity of 125,000 solder bump wafers and 108,000 gold bump wafers. Expansion of capacity scheduled in the second quarter of this year will add an additional capacity of 125,000 solder bump wafers annually; ramping production to an ultimate capacity of 720,000 wafers (annually) will be determined by customer demand.
UST will provide wafer bumping and redistribution services for six- and eight-inch silicon wafer form factors. Solder compositions will initially include both eutectic and high lead with standard and low-alpha count materials. Lead-free processes will be added as they are brought on-line at Unitive facilities worldwide. UST will have capability for solder redistribution on both aluminum and copper, and will use Dow Chemical's benzocyclobutene (BCB) for the inner-level dielectric. Additional wafer-level CSP products will be added based upon customer demand.
In related news, Unitive has closed a $30 million round of equity financing led by Onex Corp. Strategic investors participating in the round include Celestica Inc., Conexant Systems Inc., Fairchild Semiconductor International Inc. and Flextronics International Ltd. Unitive has also secured $14 million of debt financing for the purchase of capital equipment.
"Unitive will use capital from this financing to build and acquire state-of-the-art wafer-level bumping and flip chip fabrication facilities throughout the world," said Ken Donahue, Unitive CFO. During 2001, Unitive plans to build a facility in the western United States that is capable of bumping up to 400,000 wafers per year. This new facility will complement both Unitive's North Carolina and its new Taiwanese operations. Subsequent to the construction of Unitive's third facility, the company intends to expand further throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia.
Nordson and Speedline settle suit
WESTLAKE, OHIO, AND FOXBOROUGH, MASS. - In late February, Nordson Corp. and Speedline Technologies Inc. entered into an agreement to resolve the pending litigation concerning Speedline's alleged infringement of Nordson's patented mass flow calibration technology, which was developed by its subsidiary, Asymtek (Carlsbad, Calif.). This technology is used in fluid dispensing machines for use in surface mount assembly and semiconductor packaging applications. The financial terms of the settlement and license have not been disclosed.
DuPont iTechnologies and Shipley align
WILMINGTON, DEL., AND PHILADEPHIA - DuPont iTechnologies and Shipley, a wholly owned subsidiary of Rohm and Haas Co., have signed a joint development agreement to produce fully formulated 157 nanometer photoresists and anti-reflective coatings that will be used to make future generations of semiconductor chips. The companies plan to bring this technology to market by 2003. As part of the agreement, Shipley becomes the first licensee of DuPont proprietary fluoropolymer binder resin technology, one of the critical ingredients in leading-edge products for microlithography. Both companies are actively seeking semiconductor device manufacturing partners to support this development effort.
Chepaume and Stentech join forces
ORISKANY, N.Y. - Chepaume Industries and Stentech Manufacturing have reached a definitive partnering agreement, through which each company will share resources to better serve their respective and prospective clients. Stentech's leadership is in the manufacture and production of laser cut stencils, while Chepaume produces electroformed and chemical etched stencils; together, the two companies offer a complete stencil technology portfolio. Through the alliance, the companies will offer additional products to their customers, with the long-term goal to develop and research new technologies and applications for the electronics manufacturing industry.
Chase EMS Group targets New England
BRIDGEWATER, MASS. - The newly formed Chase EMS Group, a business unit of Chase Corp., is an electronics contract manufacturer offering design, prototyping, manufacturing, assembly and testing services in New England. The group consists of three separate facilities: Sunburst (West Bridgewater, Mass.), a full-service assembly facility, NETCO Automation (Haverhill, Mass.), offering prototyping and advanced technology, and RWA (Melrose, Mass.), offering production and volume assembly.
Chase EMS Group is ISO 9001 and FDA certified, and provides state-of-the-art assembly services, such as multiple high-speed surface mount technology (SMT) production lines with the ability to place fine-pitch and BGAs, as well as through-hole, hand assembly, box build and mechanical product assembly. Between the three facilities, the group boasts eight SMT lines and more than 150 employees.
SEZ acquires HMR
VILLACH, AUSTRIA - The SEZ Group has recently acquired wet bench manufacturer HMReinraum-Technik Ltd. (HMR). With its new double-sided Spin-Processor 8200 and the addition of wet bench technology, the company now offers a broader spectrum of tools and applications for wet wafer surface preparation.
HMR sells manual, semi-automatic and automatic wet bench systems. This year, SEZ plans to fully integrate HMR and develop wet benches for 300-mm semiconductor wafer manufacturing. Key to the acquisition deal is the expansion of the capacity of HMR's existing manufacturing facilities in Donaueschingen, Germany. Additionally, SEZ plans to establish a competence center for wet bench technology at the same location. In 2002, SEZ will begin marketing its wet bench products to chip manufacturers in the United States and Asia, though they are currently focusing on building and supporting HMR's European customer base.
AIT acquires Multitech
PLEASANTON, CALIF. - Advanced Interconnect Technologies (AIT) has signed a binding letter of intent to acquire Multitech Design & Test Inc. (MDT), based in Sunnyvale, Calif., and its affiliated company, Semiconductor Services LLC (Austin, Texas). MDT is a full-service independent test lab that specializes in the testing of digital, mixed signal, audio/video, radio frequency, memory standard and application-specific integrated circuits. MDT provides final test, wafer probing and test engineering services, and also offers a full range of back-end services, such as lead scan and conditioning, tape and reel, component marking and demarking, burn-in testing, bake, and dry packing.
Semiconductor Services, also an independent testing laboratory, provides analog, mixed signal, logic, linear, digital and memory device testing. MDT and Semiconductor Services are expected to help AIT expand its customer base, develop software programs and work more closely with its North American customers' engineering groups on their test programs.
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EMI's growth continues
SANTA ANA, CALIF. - Express Manufacturing Inc. (EMI) has recently doubled the size of its production facilities. The new 35,588-square-foot building is EMI's second major expansion in less than a year. In mid-year 2000, the company also added a 30,000-square-foot facility to its operations.
This new facility is designed for small and mid-volume production work for consignment customers. Services to be housed in the building include surface mount technology operations, prototype assembly, through-hole assembly, wave soldering, functional test, mechanical assembly and complete box-build capabilities.
EMI will be hiring approximately 60 to 90 production personnel for this new site. The building officially opened for production in March and is located at 2710 South Fairview, Santa Ana, CA 92704, several blocks from EMI's corporate headquarters.
ASE and 1st Silicon partner
KUCHING, SARAWAK, MALAYSIA, AND SANTA CLARA, CALIF. - Semiconductor wafer foundry 1st Silicon (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd. and ASE Electronics Malaysia, a wholly owned facility of ASE Test Limited, have announced a partnership to provide turnkey semiconductor fabrication and test services to the global semiconductor market. The agreement calls for ASE's personnel to provide onsite wafer probe services at 1st Silicon's fabrication in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia.
"Having world-class wafer fabrication, wafer probe, assembly and final test all tightly integrated will enable our customers to dramatically reduce cycle times and drop ship finished products directly to their end customers," said 1st Silicon chief executive officer, Claudio G. Loddo.
Asyst acquires AMP
FREMONT, CALIF. - Asyst Technologies Inc. recently completed the acquisition of Advanced Machine Programming (AMP). AMP is a precision machining and assembly firm with 2000 fiscal year revenues of $24 million. Asyst expects AMP to be an integral part of its automation foundry model aimed at semiconductor equipment manufacturers. AMP is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Asyst.
Under the terms of the agreement, Asyst acquired AMP in a forward subsidiary merger, with merger consideration of $19 million in cash and $19 million in Asyst stock. Asyst also paid AMP shareholders $1.7 million in cash as consideration for additional working capital in the business as of the closing date.
Dow Corning opens dielectrics lab
MIDLAND, MICH. - Dow Corning Corp. has established a dedicated PECVD dielectrics application lab in a Class-1 certified cleanroom for customer sampling and process integration work. The facility houses a state-of-the-art cleanroom with an Applied Materials DxZ PECVD system and advanced thin film analysis equipment. As a result of this investment, Dow Corning is able to produce a variety of integrated circuit, fabrication-quality CVD dielectric films on 200-mm wafers. Dow Corning will track process repeatability to ensure that optimal film performance is maintained consistent with published Z3MS low-k and barrier film properties.
Call for papers
NORTHBROOK, ILL. - The IPC (Association Connecting Electronics Industries) has announced a call for papers for the IPC Annual Meeting, which will take place October 8-13, 2001, at the Rosen Centre Hotel in Orlando, Fla. Selected papers will be presented at its HDI and packaging technical conferences, to be held October 11-12, 2001. Papers are being sought on a number of topics, including materials, processes, reliability/market applications, and technology and field data/market drivers.
Paper presentations should be 30 minutes in length and must be non-commercial in nature. Abstracts summarizing the topic must be received by June 1, 2001, and should be approximately 200 to 300 words long and include a biography. The paper/visual submission deadline is July 31, 2001. For more information, contact John Perry at 847-790-5318 or [email protected].
51st ECTC around the corner
PISCATAWAY, N.J. - The 51st Electronic Components and Technology Conference (ECTC) will be held at the Wyndham Palace Resort and Spa (Lake Buena Vista, Fla.) May 29 through June 1, 2001. The conference continues a tradition of showcasing the best in microelectronic packaging, components and systems science in an environment of cooperation and technical exchange.
Nearly 300 papers, organized into 38 technical sessions, are planned and will focus on developments and innovations in several areas, including optoelectronics, system-on-a-package technologies, RF and MEMS packaging, high-performance package design, simulation and manufacturing, flip chip and lead-free interconnections, wafer-level and chip scale packaging, and reliability test methods and design. Additionally, there will be two poster sessions, a plenary session and panel discussion. The panel discussion will focus on wireless technologies, while the plenary session will feature technical presentations on emerging technologies.
Integral to the conference are the 14 short courses that bring together industry experts from a variety of disciplines to offer state-of-the-art technology reviews and updates in condensed half-day and full-day formats. Topics include RF/wireless packaging, optoelectronic packaging, optical networks, chip scale and wafer-scale packaging, lead elimination in electronic assemblies, and polymers for packaging.
The conference will be rounded out by a Technology Corner - an exhibition of companies offering relevant products and services.
For more information on the 51st ECTC, visit www.ectc.net.