News

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Alcatel Optronics is expecting a 50% sequential sales decline in Q3. The company expects the effect of this on profits to be offset by the implementation of its cost-cutting programme.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

X-ray metrology tool producer Bede Scientific made its third profit warning this year. It says that interim losses will be worse than expected. Sales to June 30 will be in line with expectations, but this was not sufficient to cover costs and investments in the short term. The company has had difficulties converting customer interest into signed orders. Official figures are due on September 26.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

SEMI's book-to-bill ratio for the North American semiconductor equipment industry was 1.14 in August. Orders came to $1.12bn and billings were $981mn. These figures represent a 57% increase and a 14% decrease on August 2001.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

VLSI Research puts August's book-to-bill for the world semiconductor equipment industry at 0.92. This consists of $2.13bn in bookings and $2.32bn in completed sales. The sales were 10% down and the bookings 25% up on August 2001. For IC production, the August book-to-bill is put at 0.92 - $9.35bn in bookings and $10.19bn in sales. IC capacity utilisation was 86.7% in August, compared with July's 84.8%.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

iSuppli has produced a 2001 league table for ASIC suppliers. Top dog is IBM with revenues at $2.296bn. Fujitsu is number two with $1.209bn. Third place goes to LSI Logic with $1.122bn. The top European company was STMicroelectronics at No.9 with $322mn.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Leica Microsystems Lithography is to deliver an electron beam lithography system to the Fraunhofer Institute for Microelectronic Circuits and Systems (IMS) in Dresden, Germany. The tool will be able to direct write on silicon wafers and produce photomasks. IMS produces both ICs and microsystems.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Tokyo Electron (TEL) has been appointed sole distributor for Bede Scientific Instruments products in Japan. TEL will market, sell, install and maintain the entire range of Bede products for semiconductor applications and for other markets such as life sciences and pharmaceuticals from October 2002.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

The systems will be delivered before year-end and will be used for advanced inspection of semiconductor packages. The OVHM4 is a dual detector module combining a conventional image intensifier and contrast sensitive image detector. The tool is based on oblique view at highest magnification (ovhm) technology and is capable of generating multiple angle real-time x-ray images of the same sample with both detectors offering an infinitely adjustable penetration angle. This allows the operator to quickly detect failures in interconnects and quantify failures, such as excessive voiding.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Tower Semiconductor has ordered multiple A400 vertical furnace systems from ASM International. The equipment will be used in Tower's new 0.18micron Fab 2 foundry. Delivery of the systems has started and will continue during the next few quarters.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Brooks-PRI Automation has signed a definitive agreement to acquire motion and machine control technology company Berkeley Process Control. The purchase will be in exchange for 614,374 Brooks-PRI shares. These shares are subject to adjustment depending upon the performance of Berkeley in the quarter ended December 31, 2002. The deal is expected to close by calendar year end. IMPORTANT EUROSEMI PLUS TRIALISTS IF YOU HAVE COME FROM THE EUROSEMI + NEWSLETTER AND WISH TO SEARCH THE REST OF OUR ARCHIVE OF BULLETINS PLEASE CLICK ON EUROSEMI PLUS LOGO IN RIGHT HAND CORNER OF THE WEBSITE AND THEN SELECT BULLETIN ARCHIVES PLEASE REMEMBER KEYWORD SEARCH CAN ALSO BE USED TO NAVIGATE ARCHIVES

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Robotic Vision Systems is exploring the sale of its Semiconductor Equipment Group and has started discussions with a number of interested parties. The Semiconductor Equipment Group has businesses covering 3-D inspection of assembled ICs and defects and wafer bump metrology. Discussions have not yet entered into the price negotiation stage.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Tokyo Electron (TEL) is implementing reorganisation of its software development division on October 1, 2002. The operations of TEL's Advanced Software Engineering department will be transferred to Tokyo Electron Sapporo, a software development subsidiary. Further, the trade name and other corporate profiles of Tokyo Electron Sapporo will become Tokyo Electron Software Technologies.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Intel has opened its microprocessor R&D centre in Barcelona, Spain. The Intel Labs Barcelona facility is sited at the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (Bulletin 435, May 30, 2002).

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Fairchild Semiconductor has opened a Package and Technology Knowledge Center in South Korea. The centre will research new packaging materials to improve thermal and mechanical performance and develop new assembly techniques.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Nanomix has closed a $9mn Series B financing round led by Apax Partners and Sevin Rosen Funds. The company has integrated nanotube electronics on a four-inch silicon wafer and performed lab-scale prototyping of a high-density hydrogen storage system. The company plans to produce chemical sensors aimed at industrial gas leak detection, medical monitoring and industrial process control. The leak detection sensors are expected to reach the market in H2 2003. Nanomix is also developing high-density hydrogen storage alternatives for the emerging fuel cell industry.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Taiwan memory producers ProMOS Technologies and Powerchip Semiconductor are following TSMC's lead and have announced plans to build fabs in Mainland China (Bulletin 450, September 16, 2002). The Taiwan government has restricted the number to three fabs that can be built on the Mainland by its local companies before the end of 2005. The government is also demanding that Taiwan companies build 300mm on the island and run them at mass production levels before applying for Mainland investments.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

All the major obstacles to 157nm optical lithography have been overcome, was the striking claim to come out of the International Symposium on 157nm Lithography in Belgium.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Samsung Electronics has announced its 90nm logic process technology, which will be used to fabricate high capacity memory chips. Samsung is claiming to be the first company to possess the technology for 90nm. There is a long list of other companies with 90nm in various stages of development (Bulletin 446, August 19, 2002).

Wednesday 1st January 2003

This year's winner of the European Semiconductor Start Up Award has quickly moved from strength to strength and is setting in motion events that are normally confined to more mature companies. David Ridsdale travelled to Dublin and discovered that common sense and a solid plan has provided Xsil with a solid beginning

Wednesday 1st January 2003

XinTec of Taiwan has ordered a full production line from EV Group (EVG), including an EVG 640 200mm production mask aligner and an EVG 150 automated resist coating system for advanced wafer level chip scale packaging (CSP).

Wednesday 1st January 2003

A EUR3.5mn research program devoted exclusively to OVPD (Organic Vapor Phase Deposition) technology for organic LED (OLED) display applications has been granted by the German Ministry of Research and Education to a group of researchers headed by Aixtron.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Lambda Physik is to invest up to EUR5mn until 2004 in the development of 157nm laser technology for microlithography. Up to 38% of the development and research expenses for the European 157nm microlithography consortion will come from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Philips Electronics and Fairchild Semiconductor have formed a working relationship to become a multi-source supplier for small-scale logic packaging.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

STMicroelectronics has two new tiny packages in its portfolio - the MSOP8 (meeting the TSSOP8 3x3mm JEDEC standard) and the 5x3mm MLP8 (VFQFPN8 JEDEC standard).