What downturn?
10/01/2001
by Mark A. DeSorbo
The times may be lean, but many chip makers are beefing up
Corporations usually buckle down, postponing projects and limiting expenditures, during times of economic duress. But many industries employing cleanrooms and contamination control technology are doing the exact opposite.
Even though chip sales are slumping and the personal computer market is sagging, Intel Corp. is forging on with plans to expedite 300 mm wafer fab production with a new plant in Hillsboro, OR.
 |
The $2-billion manufacturing facility, called D1D, will employ Intel's 0.13-micron technology and is expected to be online in late 2003. ISO Class 4 (Class 10) cleanrooms will account for more than 100,000 square feet of the overall one-million-square-foot facility.
The project is part of Intel's $7.5-million research and development budget, which is funding two other 300 mm facilities, another in Hillsboro and one in Rio Rancho, NM. By the end of the year, Intel will have four fabs running 0.13-micron technology.
 The economy may be crawling, but new fabs and cleanrooms keep popping up. |
"We're moving forward," says Chuck Mulloy, a spokesman for Intel. "Earlier in the year, people asked us if we would even spend the $7.5 million. In an economic slowdown, technology does not slow down. You don't save your way out of an economic downturn, you invest your way out."
Like, Intel, Peregrine Semiconductor Corp. (San Diego), a developer of high-performance integrated circuits for the optical and wireless communications markets, is also moving toward 0.13-micron technology.
In Homebush, NSW, Australia, it built an ISO Class 3 (Class 1) cleanroom capable of 0.25-micron production with a roadmap to the smaller platform.
According to the company, the $18-million development will catapult the company beyond the current 0.5-micron production, leveraging its Ultra-Thin-Silicon on Sapphire CMOS.
Intel and Peregrine, however, are not the only companies in the semiconductor and microelectronics arena moving forward with plans and growing in a downturn.
In fact, Energy Conversion Devices Inc. (Troy, MI) and EKC Technology Inc. (Danville, CA) have both moved ahead with new cleanroom projects and upgrades.
David H. Novak, director of business development for cleanroom design and building firm Erland Construction Corp. (Burlington, MA), says it's all part of a cycle the semiconductor and microelectronics industries go through.
"We see the technology or the process changing out every five years," he adds.
The cycle also yields innovation as well, Novak says, noting Motorola Inc.'s new technology that combines silicon with gallium arsenide to create an optical chip.
According to Motorola, a telecommunications equipment supplier, the new chip, despite being fragile and expensive, will be more durable, 40 times faster than conventional silicon chips and be available as early as next year.
The technology, Novak says, will not only consolidate two chip-making materials, but it will bring two mediums under the roof of one controlled environment.
"Used to be you had to have a separate cleanroom for silicon and gallium arsenide, and what they are doing is consolidating, and they will mostly likely build a new facility to do that," he adds.
Whether it is a concept or blueprinted, the "change out" of tooling and processes that Novak talks about is happening all over.
EKC Technology Inc., once based in Hayward, CA, moved its corporate headquarters 22 miles to the northeast to Danville because, instead of cutting back, the supplier of wafer cleaning and surface-preparing chemicals is growing.
According to the company, the move allows it to expand its research and development facility in Hayward, which has recently been outfitted with automated blending and filling operations that use in-line particle monitoring and filtration systems to exceed Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA; San Jose, CA) roadmap requirements.
Packaging is done in ISO Class 6 (Class 1000) cleanrooms, and by the end of the year, the area will be automated with bottle filling, cap placement and torque as well as bagging and boxing operations that will bolster safety and production.
Manufacturing areas also have new equipment for processing suspensions of abrasive materials, which will allow EKC to develop products for the CMP processes for controlled material removal and defect reduction.
Building a 50,000-square-foot facility with ISO Class 6 and ISO Class 7 (Class 10,000) cleanrooms was part of a growth plan for Energy Conversion Devices Inc. (ECD; Rochester Hills, MI) to meet increased demand of its hydrogen storage products. At the time of this report, ECD was moving to the new facility from its former headquarters nine miles away in Troy.
"The enthusiastic acceptance of ECD's commercial photovoltaic, battery and hydrogen storage products has translated into increased business in all of our energy areas," says Stan Ovshinsky, chief executive officer. "The move to our new headquarters and the large-scale expansion of our production facilities allows us to respond to these critical needs and to offer additional support to our joint ventures and manufacturing units."
But this cycle is also being seen in other markets as well, Erland's Novak reports.
Biotechnology firm Tanox (Houston) has reportedly raised $406 million to set up shop at the Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park in Taipei, according to the Taiwan Economic News.
Tanox develops drugs for treating infectious diseases, oncology and immunology, and is presently developing products, including monoclonal antibodies that affect autoimmune diseases, transplantation rejection and cancer. The company will use the Taipei facility to manufacture protein drugs.
"Biotechnology has a six-year cycle, and more research facilities, more manufacturers and more investors are inclined to invest now because biotech is reaching a maturity level," Novak says. The pharmaceutical industry is using biotech as its research and development world."
Priorities for new facilities and upgrade, no matter what market application, he explains, have changed.
"People are looking at where the new technologies are headed," Novak says. " People were building projects without being realistic with their goals. Now, people are evaluating things and seeing how those goals can be met on a proven pattern."