News

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Swiss analogue IC producer EM Microelectronic says it is ready to start producing fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD SOI) ICs. EM believes that its ICs are the first FD SOIs operating at a guaranteed voltage lower than 0.5V over the whole voltage and temperature range.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) has bought UK-based Opsys' business related to the intellectual property (IP), commercialisation and technology development of organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Aixtron says it has demonstrated MOCVD processes for multi-wafer 200mm GaAs substrates with outstanding performance for the first time ever, Extensive numerical modeling enabled the existing AIX 2600 G3 reactor to be upscaled for 200mm use. Substrates from Freiberger Compound Materials were used in the demonstration. Uniformities at the 1% level are reported across the entire 200mm wafer. Material quality and homogeneity do not differ from results obtained on the well established 150mm systems. Already several AIX 2600G3 systems have been installed at customers for the production of SiGe epi structures, using multiple 200mm substrates.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

LSI Logic claims an industry first for copper/low-k processes in wire bond packaging with it Pad on I/O process. This places bond pads directly on top of active I/O circuits in a chip design. Pad on I/O was developed for LSI Logic's Gflx (0.11micron) and G90 (90nm) silicon processes. The Pad on I/O technology can reduce die areas by up to 50% when compared with standard wire bond designs.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

QinetiQ has launched a new deep reactive ion etch (RIE) silicon service. The company says the service is the first phase of providing access to a comprehensive, state-of-the-art silicon micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) design and prototyping facility, under its INTEGRAM programme. Prices and operational turnaround depend on the complexity and level of customisation. The Europractice Manufacturing Cluster INTEGRAM (Integrated Microsystems) programme was launched earlier this year with EUR1.3M of European Commission funding.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Applied Nanotech (ANI) is to deliver a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research programme on a

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Technologies and Devices (TDI) has demonstrated production of 50mm diameter GaN templates with p-type electrical conductivity. GaN is the compound semiconductor material used for the fabrication of blue spectrum (blue, green, and ultraviolet and white) light emitting diodes (LEDs), laser diodes (LDs) and high-frequency/high-power transistors. Up to now n-type GaN material technology has seen progress, but lack of a cost effective thick p-type material has hampered development and commercial availability of many types of advanced devices.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Mondiaquartz officially opened its new industrial site at Bernin near Grenoble, France. Mondiaquartz will use the site to produce products for the manufacturing of high purity 300mm quartz wafers. The new production unit has an annual production capacity worth more than EUR20mn in turnover. Among other applications quartz is used for holding silicon wafers in position in high-temperature heat treatment operations during diffusion phases.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Deep UV laser producer Cymer is to build a new 24,000m2 manufacturing facility for high-volume production, including the recently unveiled XL Series line, as part of a new business strategy. The XL sources use a dual-gas-discharge-chamber Master Oscillator Power Amplifier (MOPA) architecture.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) has bought UK-based Opsys' business related to the intellectual property (IP), commercialisation and technology development of organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays. CDT receives ownership of all rights to Opsys' dendrimer OLED technology and assumes management of the commercial and technical development of Opsys' business. More than 25 highly-skilled scientists from Opsys have been added to CDT's staff.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

TriQuint Semiconductor is to buy a substantial portion of Agere Systems'optoelectronics business for $40mn in cash. The transaction includes products, technology and some facilities. The products include lasers, detectors, modulators, passive components, arrayed waveguide-based components, amplifiers, transmitters, receivers, transceivers, transponders, and MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems).

Wednesday 1st January 2003

French company Jobin Yvon has agree to buy the ellipsometry business line of Philips Analytical. The transaction includes metrology tools such as the table top PZ laser ellipsometer, which Philips had previously acquired from German company Plasmos. Also in the deal is the PQ Ruby thin film metrology platform. Jobin Yvon is a member of Japan's Horiba Group.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Israeli metrology company Nova Measuring Instruments is to consolidate its IM (Integrated Metrology) products into two major product divisions (Thin Films and Lithography). The workforce has been reduced by 14%. The company says that all investments in its new Integrated Process Control (IPC) products and solutions are continuing.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

SZ Testsysteme successfully finalised negotiations with its creditors. A court appointed administrator, Dr Michael Miersch, has a wide range of powers to continue negotiations with all business partners. As a result of its reorganisation and recapitalisation efforts, SZ Testsysteme may now resume production at full capacity, preserving the company and its employees' jobs.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Singapore foundry Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing is reducing its workforce by 300 people, about 7% of its total headcount. About 60% of those hit by the cutback will be manufacturing operators in Singapore. About 25 people in the company's operation outside of Singapore will lose their job. Spending on new equipment is to drop by 10%.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

The Silterra Malaysia foundry has purchased additional Brooks-PRI automation equipment as the result of a planned capacity expansion for its 200mm fab. This latest order from Silterra is for an expansion of its automated material handling System (AMHS), that includes wafer stockers, track and integration services. Brooks-PRI expects to begin equipment and services delivery in its Q2 2003.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Northrop Grumman's Electronic Systems sector will be using Bede Scientific's D1 high resolution x-ray diffractometer. The tool will be used at Northrop Grumann's Advanced Materials and Semiconductor Device Technology Center in Maryland, USA. This instrument will be used primarily for the characterisation of GaN-based epitaxial structures for high-speed electronic devices. The instrument will incorporate Bede's latest version of its control and data acquisition software - Bede Control 2.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Israeli foundry Tower Semiconductor has ordered $45mn worth of equipment from Applied Materials. Tower plans to use the equipment for the production of 0.18micron and 0.13micron CMOS digital logic, mixed signal, flash memory and image sensor devices in its new Fab 2. The facility is expected to produce up to 33,000 200mm wafers per month and employ 1100 people. Tower's order includes multiple PVD (physical vapour deposition), RTP (rapid thermal processing), etch, HDP-CVD (high-density plasma chemical vapour deposition), WCVD (tungsten chemical vapour deposition), SACVD (sub-atmospheric chemical vapour deposition), wafer inspection and defect review systems.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

International SEMATECH (ISMT) and DuPont Photomasks have combined their intellectual property for producing test photomasks to be used in establishing leading edge technology nodes, under a recently signed cross-licensing agreement,

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Luxell Technologies has sold a Black Layer license agreement to Lite Array. Under the terms of the agreement, Lite Array has acquired a production licence to integrate Luxell's proprietary contrast enhancement technology in organic light-emitting diode (OLED) flat panel display products based on small molecule organic electroluminescent diode (SMOLED) technology. Lite Array will pay Luxell technology transfer fees and on-going royalties based on display sales to their customers. No other terms of the agreement were disclosed.

Wednesday 1st January 2003

Philips Electronics says it has become one of the first companies to produce commercial quantities of highly complex system-on-chips (SoCs) using 0.12micron CMOS technology. The SoCs were produced at TSMC and Philips own facilities and feature multiple digital signal processors (DSPs) and almost 9Mbits of on-chip memory.

Thursday 19th December 2002

Infineon - Dresden 300mm plant are ramping up to produce 20,000 wafers per Month in 2003 from 4,000. They are going to require equipment. Intel - Lexlip Fab 24 300mm plant tool install restarted for Q3 03 - they will be buying in 1st half of next year $1.6 billion spend. STM / Philips / Motorola - Crolles 2 in Crolles France will spend between $200m and $400m to produce 4000 wafers per month. Communicant - Germany Have funding for 200mm fab, will be buying this year. Make sure they know you are coming and generate some pre-show leads... This year Europa is being held much earlier - April 1st to April 3rd so dont miss out on getting some exposure, for there is only one email newsletter people will be looking at! European Semiconductor will be the publication that most visitors will use to keep up with the important European events and we have several channels which will help you get the right exposure running up to Semicon Europa. Our weekly email newsletter Eurosemi PLUS has now established itself as Europes primary weekly news vehicle with over 6,000 ACTIVE subscribers. On a Weekly basis, companies such as Dupont, Applied Materials, Donaldson and many more regularly utilise our newsletter to meet both awareness and lead generation needs. CLICK HERE TO REQUEST A NEWSLETTER SPONSORSHIP OR MAGAZINE ADVERTISING QUOTE

Thursday 19th December 2002

ASML has complained to the European Commission, claiming that its competitors have "ganged up" to keep it out of the Japanese lithography market, according to a report in the Financial Times.

Thursday 19th December 2002

Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology (OIPT) announced three sales orders. The company delivered GaN LED production tools to two Taiwan companies - Epitech in June 2002 and to ITE Compound Semiconductor in October 2002. The European Business Team distribution company is to provide product distribution and service support to Sagitta, manufacturer of an electron microscope sample preparation system used for semiconductor yield enhancement, failure analysis, and process development. South Korean supplier of silicon and epitaxial wafers LG Siltron has ordered the first BedeScan x-ray topography tool worth $265,000 from Bede plc. Australian chemical supplier Silex Systems made an initial order for isotopically pure silicon-28 trichlorosilane from Isonics.