News

Thursday 2nd January 2003

The World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organisation issued IC sales figures for November 2002. The world total came to $12.680bn, up 19.6% on November 2001.

Thursday 2nd January 2003

ON Semiconductor plans additional restructuring aiming at a return to profitability in Q4 2003. Some 4% of its world-wide staff - roughly 300 employees - is to be lost over the next twelve months.

Thursday 2nd January 2003

Tegal has sold a 903e plasma etch system into the biochip industry. Zyomyx will use the tool to produce high-throughput, massively parallel protein analysis systems based on micro-electro-mechanical system technologies.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

The European Commission has imposed a provisional countervailing duty of 33% on imports of DRAMs (dynamic random access memories) produced by the Korean producer Hynix Semiconductor. An investigation into Hynix found that the company benefited from subsidies in the form of financing provided by government-owned or controlled Korean banks to the detriment of Europe’s chip industry, which suffered severe losses.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

The SHUTTLELINE Mission is to provide our entry-level and R&D customers with the world’s most cost effective solution for their thin-film etching and dielectric deposition requirements. All SHUTTLELINE process chambers are vacuum loadlocked. Years of experience show process-chamber isolation is necessary in order to guarantee repeatable performance. This is as true in the lab as it is in manufacturing. Process technologies available on the SHUTTLELINE include inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etching, reactive ion etching (RIE), plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) and high density plasma (microwave) etching (HDP). In addition to the deposition of thin films including SiO2, Si3N4 and SiOxNy, Unaxis Semiconductors addresses etching requirements over a broad variety of materials. The following is a partial listing of materials for which starting-point etch processes exist: Dielectrics – SiO2, Si3N4, Al2O3, AlTiC, photoresist, polyimide Metals – Al, Cr, molybdenum, Ti, W, Ta Semiconductors – Si, SiC, TaSi Compound Semiconductors – GaAs, InP, AlGaAs, InGaP, InSb, GaN Due to the built-in flexibility of the SHUTTLELINE, its process technologies find applications in many markets for various device types including heterojunction bipolar (HBT) and high electron mobility (HEMT) transistors, surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices, lasers, gratings, lenses, LEDs and waveguides, along with implementation of the Bosch process for various micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) applications.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

SEMI made a series of awards at its SEMICON Europa trade show. The European SEMI award went to Dr Carola Blaesing of Leica Microsystems and Dr Joel Monnier of STMicroelectronics.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

BOC Edwards and Micell Integrated Systems (MIS) are to jointly develop and commercialise technology for dense and supercritical CO2 wafer cleaning.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Asset Language Management has formed a partnership with Eurosemi to offer Eurosemi subscribers a 15% discount on the FIRST translation of Semiconductor Brochures /Books / Documents. If you feel it will be of interest, please feel free to forward this article to any possible contacts responsible for PR/marketing in your company On all communication please state eurosemi to receive a 15% discount on your first translation quote. If you like to know more please contact Lisa Williams of Asset Language Management on: Tel + 44 (0)121 684 1170 email: [email protected]

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Italian company Elsag has ordered custom designed, infrared light-emitting diode (LED) illuminators from US company StockerYale.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Amkor Technology is expanding its VisionPak CMOS image sensor assembly capabilities. Air Products has brought on-stream what is claimed as the worlds largest ultra-high-purity bulk gas production facility Agere Systems has fallen below the New York Stock Exchanges continued listing standard relating to minimum share price

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Up to 200% improvement in wafer yield with new Kalrez® Sahara 8085 from DuPont Dow Elastomers DuPont Dow Elastomers just launched Kalrez® Sahara 8085 at Semicon West 2002. The new compound has been specifically developed for very low particle generation and low weight loss in plasma processes such as HDPCVD and PECVD, and will enhance seal performance in highly aggressive environments like NF3 and oxygen plasma NF3 is an efficient etching tool and a product of choice for many semiconductor chip fabricators, but under certain operating conditions may be damaging to elastomeric seals. Kalrez® Sahara 8085 was developed with NF3 plasma in mind. Up to 200% improvement in wafer yield Customers who have used Kalrez® Sahara 8085 claim that it has improved wafer yield by as much as 200% in applications where NF3 plasma is used for cleaning. It has demonstrated excellent mechanical properties, and is well-suited for both static and dynamic sealing applications such as bonded slit valve doors, bonded gate valves, gas inlets, gas orifice seals and gas feed-through seals claims Chida. Kalrez® Sahara 8085 complements Kalrez® Sahara 8575 to help improve productivity and increase wafer yields, while delivering extended seal life and reduced particle generation. Find out more! and check our site: http://www.dupont-dow.com/Products/Kalrez/indSemi.asp or write to [email protected]

Wednesday 1st January 2003

VLSI Research puts FormFactor at the top of its league table of semiconductor probe card suppliers with sales of $70.9m. The company has moved up three places from No.4 last year. Last year's leader, Japan Electronic Materials, came in at No.2 with $64.4m. The top five was completed by (in order): Kulicke & Soffa ($60.5m), Micronics Japan ($48.5m) and Wentworth Laboratories ($30.6m). The total market was $392.5m compared with $484.8m in 2000.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Chartered Semiconductor reports a

Wednesday 1st January 2003

A Bell Labs researcher into nanotechnology faces an inquiry into claims that some of the data in his papers have been falsified (Nature, May 23, and Science, May 24). Scientists noticed similar looking graphs in different papers by Jan Hendrick Schoen and others. He denies the charges. Lydia Sohn of Princeton studied graphs from Science (December 7, 2001) and Nature (October 18, 2001).

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Dai Nippon Printing and STMicroelectronics have formed an alliance for the development and supply of leading-edge photomasks.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Wafer carrier producer Entegris has officially opened a newly upgraded 4500m2 facility in Gilroy CA. The $3m plant is designed to clean products that protect and transport critical materials for the microelectronics and medical industries such as silicon wafers, computer hard disks and medical-related items. Initially, 160 employees will work at the plant, with expansion expected in the coming years.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Mentor Graphics' Calibre division has reached an agreement with IMEC to cooperate on subwavelength lithography. IMEC will use Calibre's resolution enhancement technology (RET) software on high-numerical aperture (NA) 193nm and 157nm processes. The organisations have collaborated informally since 1999. The new three-year agreement makes Mentor Graphics a formal member of IMEC's industrial affiliation programs (IIAPs) for the development of high-NA 193nm and 157nm lithography.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Intel will conduct microprocessor R&D at the Universitat Polittecnica de Catalunya (UPC) in Barcelona, Spain. The Intel Labs Barcelona (ILB) research centre will be operated by UPC on behalf of Intel. Intel's microprocessor researchers will collaborate with researchers from UPC on technologies for future Itanium (64-bit) and Pentium (32-bit) processor family designs in terms of performance, power consumption and battery life.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Semico Research puts the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for DVD player unit shipments at 29.6%. Sales are set for a 16.0% CAGR.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

SEZ has received two volume orders for its spin-processor wafer cleaning systems within the last few weeks. The combined value of the orders is about CHF22.2m ($13.3m). The orders are for tools for the treatment of 200mm and 300mm wafers and are expected for delivery this year. One follow-on order came from a foundry in Singapore for the 200mm double chamber Spin-Processor 223. Orders for the 300mm Spin-Processor 304 came from the US.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

German plasma system producer Tepla made Q1 sales of EUR0.364m from its semiconductor business. This represents an 82.6% decline over Q1 2001.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Infineon Technologies's Munich Research Labs has extended present integrated circuit wiring to smaller feature sizes. The resulting wiring met electrical reliability requirements for future chip generations extending to the 2010 timeframe. The electrical assessment covered sub-70nm metal lines down to 40nm line widths, embedded in grooves of a dielectric film. Metal lines as narrow as 55nm are expected to be used for IC production in 2010.