SEMICONDUCTOR
UPDATE
September 2008
McIlvaine Company
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PTB Creates Purer Semiconductor Layers
Asic North Opens Facility in Tempe, AZ
Electro Scientific Industries, Inc. Opens New Demo Center in Korea
Hynix Opens New Fab amid NAND Glut
Pac Tech Announces Grand Opening of Penang Facility
Lam Research Corporation Opens Training Center in Taiwan
Enthone Opens Semiconductor Applications Center in Taiwan
PTB has reportedly set up a new molecular beam epitaxy system to create semiconductor layers of the highest purity. High purity semiconductor layers have highly-mobile electrons move through the crystal without collision with residual impurities. PTB says that already the first structures made with at its facility have shown an electron mobility of up to up to 7.5 million cm2/Vs, a value five times better than conventional epitaxy system. PTB says its new development extends its leading position in electrical quantum metrology with semiconductor structures.
PTB points out that semiconductor heterostructures made of GaAs and AlGaAs are employed to produce electrical resistance using the quantum hall effect and to produce applications for single-electron charge pumps. The mobility of electrons increases with decreasing impurities of the material. PTB says that the fabrication of pure semiconductors is achieved through molecular-beam epitaxy with a high quality vacuum in the growth chamber. Also, PTB uses special cooling panels to adsorb residual impurities before they can be incorporated in the semiconductor crystal. PTB says it will promote the development of semiconductor single-electron pumps. Furthermore, the universality of electrical quantum Hall resistance metrology will be investigated focusing on measurements of the fractional quantum Hall effect.
Asic North, a Vermont semiconductor-development firm has opened a chip- design center in Tempe and is looking to initially hire up to 20 experienced engineers.
Asic North chose Tempe after a global search for an expansion site for the business. The company designs application-specific integrated circuits, or ASICs, which are microchips designed for a special application.
The company chose the Phoenix area as an expansion site because of its skilled workforce and existing semiconductor industry cluster that includes manufacturers such as Intel Corp., ON Semiconductor Corp. and Freescale Semiconductor Inc.
Semiconductor design is among a growing number of formerly in-house functions that chip makers are farming out to contractors.
Asic North's chip designs are commonly found in automobile computers, where they control various vehicle functions, and in personal digital assistants and other handheld electronic devices.
Asic North was founded in 2000 and is based in Burlington, Vt. The company employs about 40 people in Vermont but didn't say how many it ultimately plans to hire in Tempe.
Electro Scientific Inds Inc., a leading provider of world-class photonic and laser systems for micro-engineering applications, announced the opening of its new demonstration center in Anyang, Korea, situated approximately twenty-five miles south of Seoul. The center will be used by ESI to demonstrate the process capabilities of its Cignis tool, as well as other semiconductor products. The facility will be supported by both Korean and U.S. personnel on a rotational basis, and will enable the company to better train and instruct its Asian-based employees on the various semiconductor systems it offers.
ESI's Korea demo center features a Class-1000 cleanroom, a necessary component in today's successful semiconductor manufacturing facilities. As a result, the demo center will also be used as a customer co-development site, enabling ESI to continue penetrating the thin-wafer dicing, CMOS image sensor dicing, and wafer scribing markets. The new demo center is located in the Venture Digm building, a site that is currently occupied by several other technology-oriented companies.
Microchip Technology Inc., a leading provider of microcontroller and analog semiconductors, announced a US$65 million investment plan for India over the next five years.
Microchip, with over US$1 billion in sales last year, is renowned for designing high-volume embedded control solutions for the consumer, automotive, office-automation, communications and industrial-control markets worldwide.
As part of that investment, Microchip is expected to create 300 new jobs at its new wholly-owned facility, the India Development Centre, Bangalore. The full-fledged development centre, which works on integrated-circuit development and marketing, microcontroller development tools and corporate information systems, was officially inaugurated in Software Technology Parks of India, Bangalore.
According to industry analysts Microchip is the worldwide leader in 8-bit microcontrollers and Microchip is the #1 supplier of 8-bit microcontrollers in India.
Amid large losses and a memory downturn, Hynix Semiconductor Inc. has opened a new, 300-mm NAND fab in Korea, with initial production slated for September.
With the announcement, Hynix has become perhaps the wild card in NAND. It is opening the fab amid a NAND glut and vast financial losses.
The facility in Cheongju, 137 kilometers southeast of Seoul, has a monthly output capacity of 300,000 units, with production increasing to 500,000 units in the near future.
Samsung, Toshiba and the Intel-Micron duo are also ramping up relatively new NAND fabs, but those vendors are showing some restraint in the current climate. The question is whether Hynix' fab ramp will exacerbate or prolong the current NAND flash-memory downturn.
The NAND flash market has seen a sharp downturn since the beginning of 2008. And iSuppli Corp. has recently cut its 2008 NAND annual flash revenue growth forecast from 9 per cent to virtually zero.
With the exception of market leader Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., the other NAND suppliers are losing money. Intel, Micron, Hynix and Toshiba are all losing money in NAND, due to a capacity glut and product procurement cutbacks from one of the biggest NAND buyers: Apple Computer Inc.
It's unclear how fast Hynix will ramp its new fab. But clearly, if the company does not exhibit any restraint, it could potentially prolong the NAND downturn. Some believe Hynix will show little or no restraint.
Many do not see a recovery until the second half of 2009. Samsung tends to be the mover and shaker in the market, but Hynix could hold the supply and demand key.
In recent times, Hynix has reduced its NAND production in a 200-mm fab in Korea. Japan's Toshiba Corp. has recently closed a 200-mm NAND fab amid a massive 300-mm expansion plan.
Located in Cheongju, Korea, Hynix broke ground on the M11 fab in April of 2007. The fab, which occupies a grand total of 3,170,294 sq. ft. (294,637 square meters) is the third plant at that site.
M11 is scheduled to begin production of approximately 40,000 wafers per month starting in September. It will fabricate 16- and 32-gigabit NAND flash parts, based on 40-nm technology.
More specifically, Hynix is making NAND parts at the 48-nm node right now. By completing the third factory, Hynix has a total capacity of 200,000 wafers per month.
The Korean company is also working with a partner. Last month, Numonyx B.V.—the memory spin-off of Intel Corp. and STMicroelectronics Inc.—teamed up with Korea's Hynix in a major push in the NAND flash-memory market.
Under the terms, Numonyx and Hynix have disclosed a new, five-year agreement to expand their joint development programs in NAND. The companies will co-develop products and processes in the arena, including a yet-to-be-announced 41-nm line-up.
In celebration of its new 55,000 sq.ft. wafer bumping and back-end processing facility in Penang, Malaysia, Pac Tech Packaging Technologies is planning a grand opening ceremony.
According to a company statement, the new facility, located at 11900 Bayan Lepas, Byan Lepas Industrial Zone, Penang, Malaysia, is designed and laid-out to accommodate mass-production, and is reportedly capable of handling up to 600,000 wafers per year. It will provide state-of-the-art wafer bumping and backend processing for semiconductor companies within the Pacific Rim. The building has 40,000 square feet of remodeled production floor space, including cleanroom area, equipped with the latest generation equipment for 300mm wafers.
The new Malaysian facility, Pac Tech Asia, will provide a variety of special applications designed to enhance and support the Asian semiconductor manufacturing community including: electroless Ni/Au under-bump metallization for copper and aluminum devices, solder-paste stencil printing for flip-chips, solder-ball placement for wafer-level CSPs down to 200µm ball diameters, and micro solder-ball placement for fine-pitch applications down to 80µm. More advanced applications include: Ni/Pd/Au metallization for today's power MOSFET devices and gold wire bonding, tall Ni/Au bumping for RFID applications. The facility offers up to 300mm wafer processing capability.
Lam Research Corporation, a major supplier of semiconductor wafer fabrication equipment and services, announced the opening of its global product training center in Hsinchu, Taiwan with the invaluable support of the Taiwan Government. Training programs offered will help customers speed the ramp to production on new Lam Research process tools and enhance the productivity of their existing Lam Research systems. These programs will also advance the technical capabilities and competitiveness of Taiwan's local supply chain. To facilitate customers' ability to receive comprehensive training, the new facility is conveniently located in close proximity to core centers of semiconductor technology development and manufacturing. Courses will be taught in both English and the local language to enhance training effectiveness.
To enable both 200 mm and 300 mm hands-on training, the 3,600-plus square foot facility is equipped with 2300(R) and Alliance(R)-based systems. Additional equipment will be installed as customer demand for training continues to grow. The center's process and analysis courses are designed to train customers on proven procedures known to improve the productivity of Lam Research equipment. Training is being conducted both by locally based Lam Research personnel and visiting instructors from Lam Research headquarters in California.
Enthone Inc., a business of Cookson Electronics, has announced the opening of its Semiconductor Applications Center in Taoyuan, Taiwan.
The Semiconductor Applications Center represents a multi-million dollar investment that further enables Enthone to deliver customer-driven solutions to the dynamic wafer fabrication marketplace. Technologies supported at the Center include the company's MICROFAB® bump wafer processes and ViaForm® wafer deposition electrodeposition technologies, including damascene copper, through silicon via (TSV), copper redistribution layer (RDL), copper post, and lead-free bump applications.
The Center is staffed by Enthone's team of applications experts and is designed to accommodate the stringent needs of the semiconductor market. Currently, the Center provides wafer sample plating and testing for process optimization, bath composition analysis, and characterization of plated features and deposits for bump height, morphology, post-reflow inspection, and alloy composition, thin film thickness and SEM cross-sectioning for filling.
Bruco is a company that specialized in the design and delivery of Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs). Bruco B.V. has been established since 1988. Bruco is a financially healthy and steadily growing organization located in Borne, in the eastern part of The Netherlands. A new Bruco facility is being developed and will be located in the Den Bosch-region and will allow Bruco to strengthen the connection between the Technology Innovation Ecoweb Twente with the Eindhoven-Leuven-Aachen-triangle.
Bruco Integrated Circuits develops, evaluates, tests and qualifies Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) for European and global customers. Bruco's ASICs are being applied in automotive, power-management, wireless communications, MEMS and sensor and identification businesses. Bruco is a member of the Business Semiconductor Cluster Oost NL and is one of the seed investors in GreenPeak Technologies (formerly Xanadu Wireless).
McIlvaine Company,
Northfield, IL 60093-2743
Tel: 847-784-0012; Fax: 847-784-0061;
E-mail: editor@mcilvainecompany.com;
Web site: www.mcilvainecompany.com