Solid State Technology articles from April 2003

Solid State Technology archives from April 2003

There's something important going on under the radar. (Editorial).(trends in technology industries)(Editorial)
April 1, 2003... The dot.com bubble gave technology a bad name. Investors all over the world, but particularly in the US, poured money down what turned out to be a huge black hole. Executives at corporations in almost every field spent millions on networks that...

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2003... Fab automation solution Your January editorial, "The rocky road to 500mm automated factories," hit the nail on the head with respect to the struggles that the semiconductor industry faces for its data management, consolidation, analysis,...

Clarification.(Correction Notice)
April 1, 2003... The SEAJ chart and caption on p.26 of February's SST should have reported Japan's global tool orders in October as totaling [yen]69.8 billion, down 21.1% from September's total of [yen]88.5 billion. This month's chart (p. 20) has been revised...

January chip sales, tool orders down. (Business Trends).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Global chip sales totaled $12.2 billion in January 2003, a 2.4% decrease from the $12.5 billion in revenue reported in December 2002, but a 22% increase from the $10 billion recorded in January 2002, according to the Semiconductor Industry...

Dataquest Inc., a unit of Gartner Inc. (Worldwide Highlights).(forecast for worldwide semiconductor market)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... The worldwide semiconductor market is forecast to grow 8.9% in 2003, with revenue totaling $167 billion, up from $153.4 billion in 2002, according to quarterly forecast estimates by Dataquest Inc., a unit of Gartner Inc. A slowdown in the...

Future Horizons. (Worldwide Highlights).(excess capacity in semiconductor industry)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... The semiconductor industry still has excess capacity equivalent to some 11 fabs, each running 30,000 200mm wafers/month, but that should be used up by about 3Q, figures Malcolm Penn, CEO of the market research firm Future Horizons. Even if the...

European NanoBusiness Association. (Worldwide Highlights).(twelve local hubs created)
April 1, 2003... The European NanoBusiness Association has created 12 local hubs in Oslo, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Newcastle, Cambridge, London, Dublin, Munich, Eindhoven, Madrid, Budapest, and Sofia. The hubs will allow every region of Europe to participate in...

NanoBusiness Alliance. (Worldwide Highlights).(support of legislation for nanotechnology research)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... In the US, the NanoBusiness Alliance is supporting legislation to provide $2.1 billion over three years for nanotechnology R&D programs. The bill was filed by US House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R. NY) and would support...

National Semiconductor Corp. (USA).(cost structure to be streamlined)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... In order to streamline its cost structure, National Semiconductor Corp., Santa Clara, CA, will reduce its work force by 500 and will seek to sell its information appliance unit and its cellular base band business. In addition, the company will...

Micron Technology Inc. (USA).(10% headcount reduction)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Micron Technology Inc., Boise, ID, is set to reduce its headcount by 10%. The company also plans to focus on products using its latest-generation process technology.

Matheson Tri-Gas Inc. and ATMI Inc. (USA).(manufacturing and distribution agreement)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Matheson Tri-Gas Inc. and ATMI Inc. have entered into a manufacturing and distribution agreement for ATMI's SAGE product line for the compound semiconductor market.

Intel Corp. (USA).(fab conversion to cost estimated $2 bil)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Intel Corp., Santa Clara, CA, plans to convert Fab 12, a 200mm fab located in Chandler, AZ, to a 300mm wafer fab. The conversion project, estimated to cost $2 billion, will begin in 1H04, with production scheduled to begin in late 2005. The...

JMAR Technologies Inc., San Diego, CA, will sell its JMAR Precision Systems Inc. (USA).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... JMAR Technologies Inc., San Diego, CA, will sell its JMAR Precision Systems Inc. motion and metrology equipment-manufacturing operation in Chatsworth, CA, and form MAR Research, JMAR/SAL NanoLithography, and JMAR Semiconductor operations into a...

Tegal Corp. (USA).(two US patents awarded)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Tegal Corp., Petaluma, CA, has been granted two US patents for producing sub-0.15[micro]m devices via novel methods using solid source. The patented methods are enabled by actively controlling the plasma reactions on a variety of surfaces...

Veeco Instruments Inc. (USA).(joint technology development efforts with companies in Japan)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Veeco Instruments Inc., Woodbury, NY, has entered into joint technology development efforts with two Japanese manufacturers of thin film magnetic heads focused on advanced giant magnetoresistive and tunneling magnetoresistive sensor...

Rockwell Automation, Milwaukee, WI, has signed a $4.5 million, five-year contract with Air Liquide America LP. (USA).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Rockwell Automation, Milwaukee, WI, has signed a $4.5 million, five-year contract with Air Liquide America LP. Rockwell will supply its vibration analysis equipment to Air Liquide.

Agilent Technologies Inc., Palo Alto, CA, has signed an agreement to acquire IP and other assets of Pixel Devices Inc. (PDI). (USA).
April 1, 2003... Agilent Technologies Inc., Palo Alto, CA, has signed an agreement to acquire IP and other assets of Pixel Devices Inc. (PDI), a developer of CMOS image sensor technology. At the close of the transaction, key employees of Sunnyvale, CA-based PDI...

Shipley Co. LLC. (USA).(Advanced Technology Center opens)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Shipley Co. LLC, Marlborough, MA, has opened its Advanced Technology Center (ATC), a facility dedicated to the development of lithography, interconnect, low-k dielectric, and other critical materials needed for the newest generations of...

TriQuint Semiconductor Inc. (China).(facility completed to be operated by subsidiary Sawtek Inc)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... TriQuint Semiconductor Inc., Hillsboro, OR, has completed the construction of its 1100[m.sup.2] test facility located in the Tianjin Economic Technological Development Area. It will be operated by Sawtek Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of...

Mitsubishi Materials Corp. (Japan).(wholly owned sales subsidiary to open in China)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Mitsubishi Materials Corp., Tokyo, plans to open a wholly owned sales subsidiary in Shanghai, China, to begin operations in April. The new company will sell products such as electronic parts to control the temperature of electronic circuits....

Oki Electric. (Japan).(expansion of wafer-level packaging capacity)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Oki Electric plans to expand its wafer-level packaging capacity by 60% this spring. The company is adding facilities to process 3000 more wafers/month, for a total capacity of 8000/month, and looking to supply other chipmakers with chip-sized...

JSR. (Japan).(double capacity for color filter photoresists)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... JSR plans to double its capacity to make photoresist for color filters at its Kyushu plant this year, to meet growing demand from LCD makers. It will invest about $8 million ([yen]1 billion), including expansion of the cleanroom.

Nikon. (Japan).(order for CMP tool)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Nikon has a first order for its CMP tool, apparently from a chipmaker outside of Japan. The company targets a $50 million CMP business by 2005, or an approximately 15% share of the high-end CMP market.

Hynix Semiconductor Inc., Seoul, Korea, and the Korea Exchange Bank (KEB). (Korea).(memorandum of understanding)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Hynix Semiconductor Inc., Seoul, Korea, and the Korea Exchange Bank (KEB) have signed a memorandum of understanding to normalize the chipmaker's operations by 2006. Under the plan, Hynix will sell off nonessential businesses and streamline its...

Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing. (Malaysia).(Fab 1 business to be consolidated)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, Singapore, plans to consolidate its Fab 1 business into Fab 2 by March 2004. Approximately 500 employees will be affected by the consolidation.

Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc. (ASE), Kaohsiung, and AMD. (Taiwan).(agreement to develop product)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc. (ASE), Kaohsiung, and AMD have signed an agreement to jointly develop solutions for flip-chip assembly on organic packages for microprocessor chip sets. Under the agreement, the companies will share...

ProMOS Technologies Inc. (Taiwan).(court permission to continue using technology from Infineon Technologies AG)
April 1, 2003... ProMOS Technologies Inc. said a Hsinchu district court has granted a preliminary injunction allowing it to continue to develop, produce, and sell DRAM chips and other semiconductor products using technology from Infineon Technologies AG. The...

AU Optronics will acquire a 20% stake in Fujitsu's LCD business, Fujitsu Display Technologies Corp. (Taiwan).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... AU Optronics will acquire a 20% stake in Fujitsu's LCD business, Fujitsu Display Technologies Corp. AU will pay $12.6 million for the stake.

ASML Holding NV. (Eurofocus).(thermal division finds qualified buyers)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... ASML Holding NV has qualified buyers for its thermal division. The company said in January it hoped to sell the unit in 1H03.

Wacker Siltronic AG. (Eurofocus).(new silicon wafer facility)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Wacker Siltronic AG will set up a $428.7 million 300mm silicon wafer plant at its Freiberg site in Saxony, Germany. The new plant will have an initial capacity of 60,000 wafers/month with an expansion capability of up to 150,000 wafers/month....

Aixtron. (Eurofocus).(job cuts planned)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... AIXTRON, Aachen, Germany, will cut jobs in an effort to maintain profitability. The company, which makes equipment for the manufacture of compound semiconductors, did not specify how many of its 500 employees will go.

First direct measurement of brain signals, from live "escargot". (Technology News).(partnership between Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry and Infineon Technologies)
April 1, 2003... Pieter "Pete" Burggraaf Researchers at Infineon Technologies in Munich, Germany, in cooperation with the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, have directly connected a new biosensor IC to living nerve cells in snail brains. These...

Getting the shake out of interferometry. (Technology News).(new technology from Nano-Or Technologies)
April 1, 2003... Pieter "Pete" Burggraaf Scientists at Nano-Or Technologies (Lod, Israel) have come up with a combination of interferometry and optical digital imaging on a white light microscope that gives straightforward nondestructive wide-area 3D...

>8-in. dia. single-crystal BaF will cut stepper cost. (Technology News).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... New technology from Tokuyama Corp. (Tokyo) may reduce the cost of steppers by 20 to 30%. Tokuyama has developed a way to manufacture >8-in. dia. single-crystal barium fluoride (BaF). This development will simplify production of compensation...

"Ohmi" plasma enables oxide growth at <400[degrees]C. (Technology News).(innovation from Tokyo Electron Limited)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Pieter "Pete" Burggraaf Tokyo Electron Limited (TEL, Tokyo, Japan) has introduced a high-volume production system (the Trias SPA, a 200/300mm bridge tool) that uses a unique high-speed oxidation process originally developed by Professor...

Photolithography using a dual-chamber light source. (Front End of Line).
April 1, 2003... Future photolithography applications demand that light sources generate narrower and more stable spectral bandwidths to pattern finer chip features. A dual-chamber technology for excimer laser light sources will provide lithographers with...

Full via first dual damascene challenges. (Interconnect).
April 1, 2003... Copper interconnects combined with low-k dielectrics pose lithography challenges due to material incompatibilities and large aspect-ratio structures. A successful scheme for via first dual damascene requires specially optimized DUV resist on an...

Better wet bench productivity via a new method of rinse optimization. (Wafer Cleaning).
April 1, 2003... OVERVIEW Conventional wet chemistry processing in semiconductor manufacturing is virtually under attack to reduce chemical volumes, water consumption, system footprint, and overall cost; the needs are even more severe when you consider...

Current challenges dictated by today's IC packaging trends. (Packaging/Assembly).
April 1, 2003... OVERVIEW With all the attention given to wafer processing, IC advances, and microelectronics end products, we tend to lose sight of the fact that C packaging is also being pushed to a higher level of sophistication. There is an increasing...

Optimizing fab performance with MES-database active archiving. (Software).
April 1, 2003... OVERVIEW With increasing trends toward more fab automation, individual wafer tracking, and manufacturing accountability has come an enormous increase in databases associated with manufacturing execution software. The quick fixes, including...

Mask data preparation using a generic hierarchical engine. (Lithography Part 2 of a Series).
April 1, 2003... OVERVIEW Mask data preparation has been identified as a severe bottleneck and data volumes are more than doubling each year as the industry pursues the ITRS roadmap. Part of the data explosion is because some software tools are not able to...

Overlay metrology for 65nm node. (Product News).
April 1, 2003... Archer AIM leverages a new grating-style technology to reduce the measurement uncertainty associated with traditional overlay metrology for sub-100nm design rules. By providing data that correlate precisely to in-device overlay performance,...

DARC 193nm film. (Product News).
April 1, 2003... DARC 193 dielectric anti-reflective coating film, for the fabrication of sub-100nm chips, is designed to overcome the challenges of 193nm lithography by providing the photoresist compatibility and precise critical dimension (CD) control...

300mm wafer transport. (Product News).
April 1, 2003... 300mm plastic Film Frame is designed to be used with this company's Film Frame Cassette and Single Film Frame Shipper. Together, the products serve as a lightweight option to transport 300mm silicon wafers that are mounted on film frame. Film...

Display metrology software. (Product News).
April 1, 2003... ProMetric 7.0 software provides display manufacturers with a tool to replace subjective visual inspection methods, now commonly used throughout the industry, with automated techniques that are both objective and repeatable. ProMetric 7.0...

Etch residue removers. (Product News).
April 1, 2003... ACT BNE-8500 and ACT BNE-8000 quickly and effectively remove etch residue in semiconductor applications with minimal impact on the critical dimensions of vias, metal lines, and trenches, owing to low oxide and metal etch rates. While ACT...

PVD tungsten system for sub-100nm. (Product News).
April 1, 2003... The Endura PVD CleanW system is designed for critical sub-100nm polysilicon/metal gate and bit line applications. It enables chipmakers to increase the speed of their DRAMs, including DDR, Flash and SRAM devices, using a single chamber to...

Process control system. (Product News).
April 1, 2003... The Remote Monitor Unit (RMU) incorporates a secure web server, a communications gateway, and data acquisition/monitor into one device. The RMU connects control systems to Ethernet-based networks, allowing the user to remotely monitor, control,...

Wafer-processing components. (Product News).
April 1, 2003... Secure & Pure rotolined wafer-processing components and equipment, customized to meet space and process requirements, are processed in a state-of-the-art cleanroom environment and exhibit very good adhesion to metal substrates. They provide an...

Scanning probe microscopes. (Product News).
April 1, 2003... The XE-Series scanning probe microscopes (SPMs) deliver good scan accuracy and scan speed, and advanced probe tip characterization and de-convolution. Distortion-free SPM data acquisition is achieved by a novel x-y-z scan system whose design...

Compact dry pump. (Product News).
April 1, 2003... The ACP28 compact 27 [m.sup.3]/h (16 cfm) dry pump is a reliable, dependable, cost-effective alternative to scroll pumps. It is a contact-free pump (no particle generation), with stable performance over time and with predictable preventive...

CMP pad conditioners. (Product News).
April 1, 2003... DIABOND pad conditioners are diamond surface disks with a controlled microstructure, used to resurface polymer pads that carry slurry for GMP of advanced silicon, wafers and magnetic heads. With a 100% increase in pad life over typical...

Ultralow-voltage CD-SEM. (Product News).
April 1, 2003... Yosemite is the first CD-SEM that is capable of measuring below 200eV in full automation. This ultralow-voltage application is required for sensitive materials such as 193nm resist, which can shrink as much as 5nm under the 500eV beam of a...

Gallium arsenide etchants. (Product News).
April 1, 2003... These chemical etchants are designed for etching gallium arsenide and ternary GaAs based materials. When used at room temperature, they provide isotropic or anisotropic etching of GaAs in a dean, controllable fashion. Gallium arsenide etchants...

Lead screw assemblies. (Product News).
April 1, 2003... Used in motion control and actuation applications, including wafer cleaning, wafer and package handling, testing, measurement, and inspection, these lead screw assemblies are customer-tested to more than I million cycles. They exhibit very long...

Cleanroom robot. (Product News).
April 1, 2003... The LR Mate 200iB cleanroom robot has six degrees of freedom, a cleanliness rating of Glass loper Federal Standard 209E (ISO Glass 4) in optimal conditions, and Class 100 (ISO Class 5) in all other conditions. It is suitable for such industries...

Litho data analysis software. (Product News).
April 1, 2003... Klarity ProDATA version 1.4 advanced lithography data analysis software includes new functions and capabilities. With a simple point-and-click, users can instantaneously view a wafer map of SEM images to study across-wafer variation of CDs when...

Fab productivity software. (Product News).
April 1, 2003... Software for personal digital assistants (PDAs) can help reduce tool downtime and improve productivity by accelerating digital mass flow controller (MFC) troubleshooting. Atomizer software for PDAs enables engineers to monitor and control any...

CMP polishing pad. (Product News).
April 1, 2003... The FBP3 100 CMP polishing pad enhances polishing performance for critical CMP applications. Targeted for volume production processes, it delivers low defectivity results while maintaining topographical control. The polishing pad offers tight...

Calendar.(Calendar)
April 1, 2003... * APRIL 2003 15 -- Upcoming Technology Challenges for IC Manufacturing. Web presentation and conference call. Sponsored by FSI International. www.fsi-intl.com/forum 23-24 -- Silicon Workshop (MEMC)--San Jose, CA. Info: Brett Avants,...

200mm vs. 300mm manufacturing. (Perspectives).
April 1, 2003... Solid State Technology recently asked a number of industry professionals to comment on the future of 200mm vs. 300mm manufacturing. Here are several views on the topic. Through the looking glass of disruptive technology Steven M. King,...