Communicant Semiconductor Technologies has named the company's chairman and co-founder, Dr Abbas Ourmazd, as interim CEO. This follows the resignation of Dr Klaus Wiemer (Bulletin 437, June 17, 2002). Ourmazd previously served as scientific director of the Innovations for High Per-formance microelectronics (IHP) organisation that supplies many of the leading edge process technologies for wireless and broadband communication to be used by Communicant. The company says it will be announcing additional senior appointments in the coming months.

Photomask producer Photronics plans to close its Milpitas, California,
facility and reduce its North American workforce. The company's global work
force will be cut by 7-9%, with the majority of eliminated positions
resulting from the California closure.
Daniel Del Rosario, CEO, comments: "Radical cost reductions that involve
loyal and valued employees is a very painful process that we do our utmost
to avoid. However, the global semiconductor industry today is not following
the historic recovery patterns we have experienced in previous cyclical
upturns, which is forcing us to make today's decision."
He adds: "Our customers remain cautious in managing their inventories and
the roll out of new designs, as there are so few indicators of increasing
end-user demand over the near-term. In short, without a significant
improvement in both corporate and consumer confidence, we believe the
business environment will remain challenging to those companies without
flexibility and comprehensive cost reduction plans."
In April 2001, Photronics announced its intention to relocate the 15-year
old Milpitas facility to a new state-of-the-art site in the Silicon Valley
region. Since then, several changes have occurred, the company says. The
company has ramped a facility in Phoenix, Arizona, and many of its Milpitas
customers have adopted a fabless or fablite manufacturing strategy, with
increased volumes of IC designs migrating to the Asian foundries.

Lucent Technologies spin-off Agere Systems is to dump its optoelectronics
business and "focus on providing advanced integrated circuit solutions that
access, move and store network information". Optoelectronics represented 10%
of the company's total revenues in the quarter ended in June 2002.
Unfortunately, about 30% of the company's workforce is engaged in
optoelectronics and 80% of its R&D spending, according to Standard & Poor's
analyst Bruce Hyman (Financial Times). Agere is seeking a buyer for all or
part of the business. In any event, Agere's exit is to be complete by June
30, 2003.
Facilities that are to be sold or shut include sites in Texas, California
(two facilities) and Mexico. Two operations in Pennsylvania are to be sold
rather than moved to a central site in the state (Allentown). An IC
fabrication line from Allentown will be moved to the company's Orlando,
Florida, fab by the end of September 2003.
Even so, Agere wants to move to a fab-lite model and sell Orlando as an
"ongoing operation", which would source products for the company. The
company is committed to running Orlando at least until September 2004, if a
buyer is not found. The company also has assembly and test operations in
Singapore and Thailand and a relationship with the Chartered Semiconductor
foundry. By the end of the year, staff headcount will be reduced to 7200
from 11,200 today.
"I sincerely regret that these actions will have an unfortunate impact on so
many of our people," says John Dickson, president and CEO at Agere.
"However, these decisions, which are driven by changing industry dynamics,
are critical to accelerating Agere's return to profitability."
The company blames "dramatic changes in the telecommunications industry,
including capital spending constraints, excess capacity in the core network
and significant delays in deployment of higher-speed technologies" for
falling optoelectronic demand. Long-haul demand has been particularly
affected and is, unfortunately, the primary focus of Agere's business.
"We are redefining Agere as a premier provider of integrated circuit
solutions to target the communications and computing opportunities that
present the best long-term potential," says Dickson. "As we exit our
optoelectronics business, our first priority will be to ensure that we fully
support our opto customers during the transition and meet our commitments to
them."

Peregrine Semiconductor has set up a dedicated company unit for products
meeting the stringent quality needs of the space and defense markets.
Peregrine Semiconductor develops chips based on its patented process, UTSi
(ultra thin silicon) CMOS. This produces electronics on an insulating
substrate (sapphire) reducing crosstalk.

Advanced Energy Industries announced redundancies and actions to better
align the recently acquired Aera mass flow controller (MFC) business within
its operating framework. The acquisition took place in January this year.
The plan includes manufacturing and facility consolidations, related
headcount reductions of 100 individuals, or 7% of the workforce, and
stringent discretionary spending restrictions. The major operational change
is the elimination within the next 90 days of an MFC production plant in
Texas. A facility in Japan is said to be able to support business levels
significantly higher than current demand and will assume all MFC
manufacturing. The Texas location will continue as a support, service and
sales office.

IBM reported on workforce reduction actions in the quarter to June 30. The
company's microelectronics business is to shed 1400 people by August 30,
2002. Some 3% had already left by June 30.

US flat panel display manufacturer Planar Systems is to close a photonics
initiative and consolidate production in Finland for its electroluminescent
(EL) display panels. An EL facility in Oregon is to close in the next year
with the loss of 35 jobs. Shutting the photonics venture - aiming to use
thin-film and LCD technology - will result in 20 job losses.