Investment & Expansion
instrumentation divisions SurfaceWave technology branch. SurfaceWave will
now be known as Philips Advanced Metrology Systems (Philips AMS). The
business will specialise in the manufacture and marketing of semiconductor
interconnect metal film thickness measurement tools for online monitoring of
advanced semiconductor processes such as copper metallisation. Such
processes include barrier/seed, electrochemical deposition (ECD) plating and
chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) on blanket and patterned wafers.
The patented SurfaceWave technology is available on 200mm and 300mm
automated, SEMI compliant platforms. Support will come from Philips AMS
worldwide network of sales and service organisations and companies such as
veonis Technologies in Europe.
Based in Massachusetts, Philips Advanced Metrology Systems was founded on
technology licensed from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The
founding company, incorporated in 1996 as Active Impulse Systems, was bought
by Philips Electronics in August 1998 and incorporated as a unit within the
Philips Analytical instrumentation division. Philips Analytical has been
broken up as a Philips subsidiary and parts sold.
An Israeli organic semiconductor technology company, Nanolayers, has become
the first firm to receive funding approval from Israels new Heznek
programme, administered by the Office of the Chief Scientist. The Nanolayers
technology was developed by Dr Shlomo Yitzchaik of the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem and licensed exclusively to Nanolayers by its technology transfer
arm, Yissum.
Heznek is a government programme that matches investments
dollar-for-dollar, up to 1mn dollars, made by qualified venture capitalists. Later,
investors will be able to acquire the governments shares at the initial
price any time within five years.
Nanolayers possesses a new organic chemical deposition process that is
designed to create functional electronic components one molecular layer at a
time. These layers are said to exhibit properties that compare with and even
surpass important elements of current inorganic manufacturing technology.
Initial applications include flat panel displays and computer chips.
Austrian processing equipment manufacturer EV Group (EVG) celebrated the
official opening celebration of a new joint venture company EVG-Jointech in
Taiwan. The company is seeking to come closer to its Taiwanese customer base
that includes industrial micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) foundries,
advanced IC packaging companies and the semiconductor industry.
