feb2010update

The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, the Middle East's first graduate research institution dedicated to alternative energy, environmental technologies and sustainability, and the Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC), today announced an Abu Dhabi-based, world class, research- centric Master's in Microsystems degree program that will begin in the fall 2010 school year.

Developed in collaboration with the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the new program's coursework and curriculum will also provide joint research opportunities for faculty. Through this partnership, ATIC will support the development of a semiconductor "clean room" and associated laboratories at Masdar Institute's facility to be located in Masdar City, the world's first sustainable city, fully powered by renewable energy.

"This program is an important milestone for both partners as it will contribute to building highly skilled human capital for Abu Dhabi which is making a significant investment in semiconductor manufacturing in an effort to create a knowledge-led economy, " said Dr. John Perkins, Provost of Masdar Institute.

"Energy is one of the most critical issues facing the world," said Ibrahim Ajami, Chief Executive Officer of ATIC. "Semiconductors play a key role in all phases, from energy generation - especially renewable energy generation - to distribution and consumption. Advances in semiconductor research can significantly impact the globe's energy footprint, an issue of critical importance that can help make Abu Dhabi a future hub of semiconductor innovation." The Microsystems MSc graduates of Masdar Institute will have globally-relevant skills. The coursework, developed in collaboration with MIT and with the support of ATIC, will include modules on nanoprocessing technology, digital systems laboratories, integrated microelectronic devices and the physics of micro-fabrication. As part of the program, the research being conducted in collaboration with the semiconductor industry will provide Masdar Institute faculty and students with the opportunity to develop, pilot and scale solutions applicable to solving the problems of energy supply, demand and climate change.

Infineon Malaysia Plans RM180 Million Expansion

Infineon Technologies (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd plans to invest RM180 million in capacity expansion, developing new back-end technologies and upgrading its manufacturing facilities in Melaka this year.

Vice president and managing director Peter Bailey said that physical expansion of the 6,700-square metre manufacturing facility would add another 16 per cent to the company's production capacity of power semiconductors in Melaka.

"As demand for energy-efficient applications in automotive, industrial and consumer markets improved, we are expanding the back-end manufacturing plant for power semiconductors," he said at a media conference in Melaka today in conjunction with the visit of Melaka Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam.

The expansion of the Melaka site is an important investment and also reaffirmed Infineon's commitment to manufacturing and engineering activities in the state, according to Bailey.

Besides manufacturing, Infineon will further invest in building engineering competencies for packaging technologies, products and test development, he said.

"About RM21 million of the RM180 million will be invested in engineering know-how and development tools for design of new package and processed technologies," he added.

Since the development centre was opened in 2006, the number of engineers has grown three-fold to 154 engineers.

Infineon expects to grow its engineering-based competencies through the company's innovation fab initiative and university collaboration programme, moving to meet customers'' demand for innovative and competitive solutions.

Infineon, which is Germany's largest semiconductor company, presently has around 5,600 employees in Melaka and expects to increase the number to about 5,800 by September this year, making it the largest in the Asia Pacific.

Since starting in Melaka since 1973, Infineon has been investing in state-of-the-art technologies in the Free Trade Zone in Batu Berendam here with a total investment of RM5 billion.

Infineon Melaka has built a reputation as a cost-competitive assembly and test site for volume manufacturing of power and discrete semiconductors, sensors and logic products.

Semiconductor devices produced at the Melaka plant accounted for an annual export value of over RM3 billion.

Bosch Readies Automotive IC Fab

Robert Bosch GmbH is gearing up its 200mm wafer fab in Reutlingen for ramp up in early March.

With a delay of about nine months, the fab aims to start production ramp-up in early March, also the capacity target apparently has been reduced.

At a conference of automotive electronics experts in Munich, Bosch manager Rainer Kallenbach said the company will start production in the first days of March.

While Kallenbach, a member of the board of Bosch's automotive electronics business unit, said that this is not a formal announcement he provided some details on capacity and technologies used in the fab.

According to Kallenbach, the fab will have a capacity of up to 800 waferstarts per day. In earlier announcements, the company specified the capacity to 1000 waferstarts per day.

The fab will manufacture ASICs, ASSPs, analogue ICs, power devices and MEMS for Bosch's captive demand in the first place. It will run BCD4, 4s, 6, 6s and advanced CMOS as well as MEMS processes with feature sizes down to 180µm.

Associated to the production line is also a new test centre. The production site will create some 800 jobs. However, the company said earlier that it plans to close an older facility as soon as the new fab is productive.

Taiwan Semi, AU Optronics Set for China Upgrade

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and AU Optronics Corp. plan to take advantage of eased rules on investment in China to meet rising competition from Korean and mainland rivals in the island's biggest export market.

Taiwan Semiconductor, the world's No. 1 custom chipmaker, will upgrade technology at its Shanghai plant, JH Tzeng, spokesman for the Hsinchu, Taiwan-based company said within hours of the new rules being announced by the island's economics ministry late yesterday. AUO, Taiwan's largest LCD producer, will be able to cut shipment times and boost services to its China clients, it said in a statement.

South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Display Co., the world's biggest flat-panel makers, have already announced China plans while AUO was restricted to low-level assembly before yesterday's announcement. Taiwan Semiconductor's Shanghai factory currently uses nine-year old technology.

"The move will increase the competence of Taiwan's panel industry," Hsinchu-based AUO said in a statement yesterday. "We shall shorten the schedule of product shipment and could provide on-site services to our customers in China."

AUO makes LCD modules, partially assembled screens used in monitors and TVs, in Suzhou, Songjiang and Xiamen in China while its most advanced factory, a so-called 8.5-generation plant, operates in Taichung, Central Taiwan. An 8.5-generation plant can make panels the size of a pool table, with the later generations enabling makers to supply larger screens more efficiently for use in televisions.

Taiwan's new rules, to be enacted "within days," will allow up to three factories of sixth-generation or later to be built in China by Taiwan companies as long as the applicant already operates a more advanced plant on the island, Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-Shiang told reporters last night.

"Based on the current situation, three sixth-generation factories is enough," Shih said.

Suwon, Korea-based Samsung, the world's largest LCD maker, said Oct. 16 it will build a 2.6 trillion won (US$2.2 billion) 7.5-generation panel factory in China. Two days earlier, Seoul- based LG Display, the second-biggest, said it will form a US$4 billion venture for an eighth-generation LCD plant in Guangzhou.

Taiwan Semiconductor, which was restricted to using 0.18 micron technology in China, plans to upgrade that to 0.13 micron technology "soon," Tzeng said by phone last night without providing a more detailed timeline. A micron, or one millionth of a meter, measures the connections in a chip, with lower metrics allowing for more advanced, smaller semiconductors.

The 0.18 micron technology was used by the company at its Taiwan facilities nine years ago and has since been replaced by 0.045 micron, or 45 nanometer, technology.

The new rules will pave the way for Taiwan Semiconductor to use technology as advanced as 90 nanometer in China, Woody Duh director general of the economic ministry's industrial development bureau said Wednesday.

Brazil Pushes Semiconductor Ambitions

Politicians who packed a stage in sweltering heat to celebrate the grand opening of what they describe as Latin America's first semiconductor fab provided a glimpse into the mindset of the Brazil government-backed play to build a chip industry in the country.

Elected officials who spoke at the grand opening of government-funded startup Ceitec SA's wafer fab described the effort to establish semiconductor manufacturing as a strategically important step in helping transition Brazil to a bigger industrial power, away from its reliance on export of its rich supply of raw materials. While politicians stressed they wanted to lure more multi-national companies to Brazil to establish fabs and other electronics manufacturing facilities, they emphasized the establishment of a Brazil-based IC company as a linchpin in that strategy, facilitating development of the required supplier infrastructure and luring Brazilian engineers based abroad back to their native land.

Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (right) tours the pump room supporting Ceitec's chip fab. Ceitec CEO Eduard Weichselbaumer (center) looks on.

Dilma Rousseff, chief of staff to Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said the establishment of Ceitec would ensure the transfer of technical chip design and manufacturing knowledge within Brazil. Rousseff, who is considered a leading candidate to replace da Silva when his second term expires this year, said it was critical to lure multinational chip companies to Brazil, but that the existence of a Brazil IC company will reduce its dependency on outside firms.

Rousseff and others said Ceitec would eventually be able to design and manufacture modulator chips to support Brazil's SBTVD DTV standard as well as chips for government-issued passports, drivers' licenses and IDs. She said that Brazil can be among the major economic powers in years to come.

President da Silva said Ceitec would help to reverse what he described as a kind of inferiority complex that gripped a whole generation of Brazilians in the 1980s, when many in the nation assumed that quality electronics products had to be made abroad. Alluding to U.S. President Barack Obama's campaign slogan, da Silva told his fellow Brazilians, "Yes, we can."

Da Silva told the audience that Brazil once had a competitive microelectronics industry, but that it was disassembled in the 1980s due to opposition to state-supported business. He said the government does not generally want to create nationalized businesses, but that it must be prepared to do so in certain instances if the private sector will not.

Da Silva said Ceitec would be critical to helping Brazil bring back Brazilian engineers who are working abroad. Those who left the country because they believed there was no market for microelectronics engineering in Brazil will now look at Ceitec and see that they have an opportunity to apply their trade in Brazil, he said. He said it was "shameful" that the number of Brazilians that studied engineering had been on the decline for many years, but that it is now on the rise.

Ceitec is a startup backed by about $250 million in government funding. The company's wafer fab here is considered modest by modern semiconductor manufacturing standards. It will eventually be capable of processing about 50,000 wafers per year and can support manufacturing down to the 0.35µm node, according to Fabio Pintchovski, Ceitec's VP of R&D. The fab won't be officially in production until late this year.

In an interview prior to the grand opening event, Sergio Rezende, Brazil's minister of science and technology, described Ceitec as part of a multi-step plan to establish a semiconductor industry in Brazil. In the early part of the decade, Brazil started a national program to develop a microelectronics industry and began providing incentives for universities and students aimed at developing more design engineers, he said. The next step was to begin government funding of the Ceitec program (the precursor to the incorporation of Ceitec SA), he said. The final step will be the creation of incentives, including tax breaks, designed to lure multi-national chip companies to Brazil, Rezende said.

Rezende, a long time engineering professor at several universities in the United States and elsewhere, said that the Brazilian parliament has already passed laws that give the president the authority to create financial incentive programs to attract multinationals. "This is in the plan," Rezende said. "But we have to take one step after the other."

A number of contract manufacturers based in South Korea and elsewhere have facilities in a free trade zone established by Brazil in the city of Manaus. Almost all of the components they use are currently imported, Rezende said, but the Brazilian government has the authority to impose conditions requiring that a certain percentage of components they buy must be made in Brazil.

Asked if Brazil could potentially become a global semiconductor manufacturing hub, Rezende responded "Absolutely." He said that the country has made graduating more engineers a priority. While he drew important distinctions between Brazil and China—chiefly the size of the countries' respective populations—he said Brazil can graduate a proportionally comparable number of engineers. Brazil's population is about 190 million, China's is over 1.3 billion.

Ceitec Fab-lite Strategy

Targeting a fab-lite model, Ceitec is using a foundry for production of its initial product, an RFID tag for cattle known as Chip de Boi. CEO Eduard Weichselbaumer declined to disclose Ceitec's foundry partner, but the company has previously disclosed a relationship with Germany's X-Fab Semiconductor Foundries AG, through which it also licensed a 0.6µm technology process believed to be used to make the chip. Ceitec has other products in the works, including a digital TV modulator to support Brazil's SBTVD standard, which is based on the Japanese standard ISDB-T.

Weichselbaumer has said that Ceitec expects its fab here to be at capacity in two years. At that point, the company will outsource more product to foundries and look to raise capital—probably through taking the company public—in order to build a large, modern wafer fab somewhere in Brazil.

President da Silva echoed this strategy in his speech Feb. 5, suggesting that several more fabs could follow in years to come.

Brazil has previously stated its intention to build a semiconductor manufacturing hub. Some are skeptical, pointing out that similar initiatives in recent years by other governments have yielded mixed results.

Bill McClean, president of market research firm IC Insights, recently told EE Times that governments that make semiconductor manufacturing part of the national agenda often don't fully appreciate the capital intensive nature of the business. He noted that building a fab is not like building an automotive manufacturing plant—an initial investment of several billions of dollars will have to be augmented by billions more down the road to keep fab equipment up to date with the latest processing technology.

Weichselbaumer's initial strategy for Ceitec is to find opportunities where the technology barriers are relatively low in markets that are not dominated by one or a few competitors. To sell the Chip de Boi device to Brazilian cattle ranchers, Ceitec ended up building the entire tag system that the RFID device goes into and has a sales force targeting ranches in Brazil.

Ceitec SA officially started operations last year. Though the company took its name from a government-backed R&D effort that launched several design centers earlier this decade, Weichselbaumer insists that Ceitec is a true startup. He acknowledged that the company should have probably adopted a different name to avoid confusion with the government program, but said Brazil's parliament insisted on the name Ceitec in an effort to "show continuity."

Weichselbaumer, a 28-year veteran of the semiconductor industry who has held management positions at large firms and founded some successful startups, describes Ceitec's progress as the most rapid he has ever seen for a startup. He largely credits government backing, noting that the company has not had to raise money from private sources. The company currently has about 120 employees, many of them engineers from other countries. Da Silva told the audience that Ceitec would have about 250 employees by the end of the year.

While the Porto Alegre fab may not be a technological marvel, Weichselbaumer notes that the cost of the building and equipment are already written off (the building and most of the equipment were originally put in place by the government program).

In his speech, da Silva stopped just short of accusing Japan of reneging on a promise to build a fab in Brazil. He said that in 2006 when Brazil agreed to adopt Japan's ISDB-T DTV standard, Japan agreed it would build a semiconductor fab in Brazil. But this has not yet happened, da Silva noted. He said Brazil needed to resume talks with Japan on this issue. He added that Japan's frequent changes of prime minister complicate the issue.

Da Silva did not associate a particular Japan company with any promise to build a fab.

Rezende acknowledged that Brazil has been trying to lure chip companies to set up fabs or other facilities in Brazil for years. He said Intel Corp. nearly chose Brazil as the site of a test and assembly facility in the late 1990s, but that the company ultimately built that facility in Costa Rica.

A number of multinational companies have design centers and other facilities in Brazil, including Freescale Semiconductor Inc., which has operated in Brazil since 1998. In 2006, Intel's venture capital arm created a $50 million fund to invest in technology companies in Brazil.

Rezende said the Ministry of Science and Technology supports 10 chip design houses based in various regions of Southern Brazil.

Samsung Moving Ahead of Schedule on $500 Million Austin Project

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. is moving fast on a $500 million renovation of its chip manufacturing complex in Northeast Austin.

The world's second-largest semiconductor maker has more than 1,000 construction workers on site to help turn the older of its two Austin factories — formerly known as Fab 1 — into an annex of the much larger and newer Fab 2, which sits next door.

When the work is done and production starts, the two factories will be one big manufacturing plant for advanced NAND flash memory chips, the kind that goes into portable media players, like Apple Inc.'s iPod, smart phones and some computers.

Samsung's Austin investment has been a high-tech conundrum. The South Korean company says Fab 2 is the largest chip manufacturing plant in North America. The company has invested more than $4 billion here since it arrived in town in the late 1990s.

The factory has plenty of room to grow. The company has only fully equipped "module one," which accounts for half the cleanroom space available. That means once Samsung decides the economy is healthy enough, it can equip the second half of the fab and really send production zooming upward.

But more investment hasn't always meant more jobs. The closing of Fab 1 for renovation led the company to cut 550 jobs starting last August. Samsung now employs slightly more than 1,000 people at the factory, compared with its peak of about 1,800 a few years ago. The company says it will hire another 200 workers here once the building project is completed and the converted factory gets ready for production.

The construction work is scheduled to be done by the end of March, more than a month ahead of schedule, and the complex is expected to begin turning out a new generation of NAND flash chips before the end of June.

Work is moving fast because that is the way Samsung prefers to operate. Time savings on a building project can translate into millions of dollars of additional revenue for the company.

"For us, time is the challenge," engineering director Hunter Brugge said. "The memory business is fast-paced. There is pressure to be cost-effective and to deliver high quality. There is always a challenge. It is always exciting."

Business is booming in the flash memory market as electronics companies sell more battery-powered products, like personal media players, smart phones and tablet computers.

NAND flash chips, which can store data for years at a time even when the power of a device is turned off, are far more battery-efficient than conventional computer memories.

Samsung sold $4.6 billion worth of NAND flash chips last year — more than any other company — according to one estimate.

NAND flash market is one of the fastest growing segments in the semiconductor industry. It estimates global NAND sales will expand from $15 billion in 2009 to nearly $28 billion in 2012.

"There has been a shortage of memory parts in the last year," Handy said. "Prices have stayed flat, and profits are up. If you are going to step up production, this is a good time to do it."

Part of Samsung's construction project involves building a special 173-foot-long passageway for moving partially processed wafers from one part of the factory to the other.

The new complex will have two new names. Fab 1 will be known as the Copper Fab, because that is where copper will be deposited on silicon wafers as a fast metal connection for microscopic circuit paths inside the chips. The larger Fab 2 — completed in 2007 — will be known as the Main Fab.

Chipmakers like copper because it conducts electricity better than aluminum, which was the main metal used in chip factories for decades.

But copper is also a problematic material in a chip factory. Copper diffuses much more easily than aluminum does inside a fab, and if it gets in contact with silicon wafers too early in the manufacturing process, it can ruin them.

"Copper is tricky to control," Handy said. "The way some fabs deal with it is by quarantining copper from the rest of the process."

That's what Samsung has done. About three-quarters of the process work needed for flash memory will be done in the Main Fab. For the final copper process steps, the silicon wafers will be shipped to the other fab using the automated material handling pathway.

It's a one-way trip. Once the wafers are processed with copper, they will be tested and then shipped to Asia for final assembly, which involves cutting the wafers and then covering them with a protective coating and adding electrical connections.

The copper process yields memory chips that are faster than traditional NAND flash chips. But Handy said not all products need really fast NAND chips — at least not yet: The products that can really use the faster chips are primarily computers.

Ceitec CEO Sees Mega-Fab in Brazil's Future

Brazil semiconductor startup Ceitec SA is set to officially cut the ribbon on its fab in Porto Alegre, in Southern Brazil, in a milestone event. By all accounts, the Porto Alegre fab is modest by modern semiconductor manufacturing technology standards, capable of about 1,000 six-inch wafers per week using 0.6µm process technology licensed from X-Fab Semiconductor Foundries AG. But according to Ceitec's top executive, the Porto Alegre fab is only a stepping stone, one that will eventually lead to a large, 300mm "TSMC-type fab" in Brazil within three years.

Eduard Weichselbaumer is a 28-year veteran of the semiconductor industry, having held senior management positions at companies including Fairchild Semiconductor, LSI Logic and Virage Logic, among others. He took over as Ceitec's chairman and CEO last year.

Weichselbaumer said that Ceitec is employing for the time being a fab-lite model, with its Porto Alegre fab capable of handling the manufacture of its initial RFID chip, a cattle identification tag dubbed Chip de Boi. The company plans to use an outside foundry for other offerings targeting wireless communications and digital multimedia market segments, Weichselbaumer said.

But barring another global recession, Ceitec expects the Porto Alegre fab to be 90 percent full in two years, Weichselbaumer said. At that point, he believes it will make sense for Ceitec—which is 100 percent owned by the Brazilian government—to raise capital—likely by going public—to build a much larger fab in the country.

"If I put a TSMC-like fab into South America today, it would be like something completely out of a dream world," Weichselbaumer said. But within three years the infrastructure and the semiconductor industry support system will be robust enough to support a large fab, he said.

Weichselbaumer and other Ceitec proponents argue that the company can succeed partly by virtue of the domestic Brazilian market and its population of about 190 million. Ninety-eight percent of Brazil's electronics are imported, Weichselbaumer said, including 100 percent of semiconductors.

The Brazilian government is keenly aware of this Weichselbaumer said. "This is a very high-level, strategic project," he said. "These guys want to increase the number of high-tech exports and lower the number of high- tech imports into the country."

In recent years, the Brazilian government has launched several programs to establish IC design centers, fabs and assembly plants. In 2007 the government unveiled a set of tax and other incentives to attract multinational chipmakers.

Several multi-nationals have design centers in Brazil, including Freescale Semiconductor Inc., which has been in the country since 1998.

Weichselbaumer said Brazil has remained comparatively strong through the global recession. He said this helped Ceitec attract the attention of equipment and materials suppliers that the company must do business with in order to operate a fab.

Ceitec faces its share of skeptics. Since being launched by the Brazilian government in 2000, Ceitec's evolution has been marked by delays and false starts. The Porto Alegre fab, for example, was originally slated to begin production in 2008. According to Dieseldorff, the company experienced delays in equipping the fab, but has ironed those issues out.

A number of semiconductor industry people in Brazil balked last year, when Ceitec announced Chip de Boi, calling it the first IC entirely designed in that country. Dozens of ICs have been designed in Brazil, they said.

In the recent interview, Weichselbaumer stood by the claim, though he qualified it somewhat. He called the device the first chip designed and built by a Brazilian firm in Brazil. (Others continue to dispute this claim, with one saying the first was a video transcoder designed by one Brazilian firm and produced by another more than 20 years ago.)

Others are skeptical of the Brazilian government's push to establish an IC industry in the South American nation. Over the years a number of governments have pushed to establish semiconductor manufacturing in their countries, skeptics note, but in recent years this efforts have met with mixed success. While Taiwan has grown into an IC powerhouse, particularly in foundry, and South Korea has become the world's dominant center for chip memory, more recent efforts in Singapore, China, and India have been less successful, skeptics argue.

UMC Swings to Profit in 4Q09; increases 2010 Capex

"Looking into 2010, UMC shares the industry's positive outlook on growth for the foundry sector," according to company CEO Shih-Wei Sun. Sun revealed the company's plans to increase capex in 2010, as it is seeing robust demand for advanced technologies.

UMC plans to boost 45/40nm process capacity at Fab 12A (Tainan, Taiwan), where R&D and pilot production of its 28nm process take place, Sun said. It will also move to expand 65/60nm process capacity at Fab 12i (Singapore) in 2010.

In addition, Sun noted UMC will be speeding up cleanroom construction and equipment move-in for a new factory building (Phase 3), which is part of the company's Fab 12A, in 2010.

UMC revealed in its latest quarterly financial report that sales generated from 65nm and below technologies climbed to 17% of its fourth-quarter 2009 revenues, compared to 14% in the prior quarter and 8% a year ago. It attributed the growth to increased demand for wireless communication chips. Meanwhile, the 90nm and 0.13-micron segments took a combined 48% share in the fourth quarter.

In contrast to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which saw its sequential sales growth driven mostly by computer-related applications in fourth-quarter 2009, UMC indicated revenues from the computer segment slid to 11% of its fourth-quarter revenues from the previous quarter's 17%. However, sales generated from the communication segment grew from 59% to 62%, UMC said.

UMC's utilization rate rose to 86% in the fourth quarter of 2009 from 48% a year earlier, signaling a recovery. The foundry expects utilization rate to remain in the high-80% range in the first quarter of 2010, buoyed by rising sales from the computer segment. It also estimated wafer shipments may stay flat on quarter in the first quarter, but ASPs may decrease by less than 3%.

Toshiba Corporation (Toshiba) and its Chinese subsidiary, Toshiba Semiconductor (Wuxi) Co., Ltd. (TSW), have signed a memorandum of understanding with Nantong Fujitsu Microelectronics Co., Ltd, a Chinese major back-end process specialist, on forming a manufacturing joint venture in China for the semiconductor back-end process. The companies expect to enter into a definitive agreement in January 2010 and to establish the joint venture in April 2010.

In the System LSI business, Toshiba is focusing on the front-end process in its operations and transferring the back-end process of assembly and testing to specialist partners. In promoting this strategy TSW will transfer its LSI back-end process to a joint venture with NFME, which is seeking to expand and strengthen its business in this area.

The MOU calls for TSW to fold its back-end process facilities into a joint venture that will be initially 80 percent owned by TSW and 20 percent by NFME. The JV's initial investment ratio may be adjusted in the next few years among the parties, if NFME decides to exercise an option to increase its holding in the JV to take a majority interest. Through this cooperative relationship, Toshiba will regard NFME as a strategic partner in the back-end process area. TSW will retain capabilities in manufacturing management and function as a local base for Toshiba to promote an outsourcing system for the back-end process.

Toshiba's recent measures in the system LSI back-end process include establishing a new joint venture in Japan in order to accelerate outsourcing of the back-end process. The proposed JV with NFME builds on and extends this strategy.

Company Name	To be determined
Location	Wuxi, Jiangsu, The People's Republic of China
President and CEO	To be determined
Business	Semiconductor assembly and testing services
Capitalization	1 billion yen
Initial ownership	80% by Toshiba Semiconductor (Wuxi) Co., Ltd.; 20% Nantong Fujitsu Microelectronics Co., Ltd.

Location	Wuxi, Jiangsu, The People's Republic of China
President and CEO	Hiroyuki Matsumoto
Business	Semiconductor assembly and testing services
Stated Capital	2,800 million yen
Ownership	100% Toshiba Corporation
Employees	Approx. 400 (as of October 2009)

Location	Nantong, Jiangsu, The People's Republic of China
President and CEO	Ming-Da Shi
Business	Semiconductor assembly and testing services
Stated Capital	347.1 million RMB (Approx. 4,550 million yen)
Ownership	43.21% Nangton Huada Microelectronics Group Co., Ltd., 28.81% Fujitsu (China) Co., Ltd., 27.98% Others
Employees	Approx. 3,500 (as of October 2009)

Intel’s Fab 28/History and Plans

In September 8, 2007 Intel broke ground on its first 300mm wafer fabrication facility in Asia. The new factory, named Fab 68, extends Intel's manufacturing leadership, while helping cultivate engineering talent, accelerate the growth of China's information technology (IT) ecosystem, and bring Intel's culture of environmental leadership to China. The $2.5 billion project is set to be operational in 2010. Fab 68 will cover 163,000 square meters (1,753,880 sq. ft.) of factory space and host a 15,000 square meter (161,400 sq. ft.) cleanroom.

"The scope and scale of our global manufacturing network gives Intel the ability to provide customers with leading-edge, energy-efficient products in high volume," said Craig Barrett, Chairman, Intel Corporation. "Fab 68 will have world-class infrastructure and be an integral part of our global manufacturing network while bringing us closer to our customers and partners in China."

"Intel's investment in Fab 68 comes at a time when Dalian's information technology industry is aiming to compete globally and become one of the top three IT clusters in China," said Dalian Mayor Xia Deren. "Fab 68 is not just bringing advanced chipset manufacturing to Dalian, Intel's presence will attract investment from virtually every segment of the IC industry, which in turn will have tremendous effect on the region's economy and industries. It is estimated that many suppliers are planning to follow Intel's lead and establish operations in Dalian. The cluster will help revitalizing the industries in China's Northeast region, and make Dalian rise to be one of the IT hubs in China."

Demonstrating its dedication to sustainable growth in Dalian, Fab 68 will be designed and built to minimize impact on the environment. "Intel has a long history of environmental leadership in our products and operations and we are applying the same world-class design and construction standards in Fab 68 that we apply everywhere in the world," said Kirby Jefferson, General Manager of Fab 68. "The design standards for Fab 68 meet Intel's high standards for environmental performance in all areas including water, energy and chemical waste management."

With its presence in Dalian, Intel plans initiatives aimed at developing the local talent pool. "Local talent development is a key component to our fab network strategy," said Wee Theng Tan, Vice President of Corporate Affairs Group and President of Intel China. "We're partnering with the Dalian University of Technology and the Dalian Municipal Government to establish the Semiconductor Technology Institute and donating a 200 mm wafer process line for training purposes. In the future, this Semiconductor Technology Institute will foster world-class talent for the IT industry in China and around the globe."

Intel investment in Fab 68 sets its total investment in China to close to US$ 4 billion. Intel has established two assembly and test plants in Shanghai and Chengdu, along with R&D centers and labs in Beijing, Shanghai and elsewhere in China.

D&O Plans RM50 Million Expansion

D&O Ventures Bhd, a semiconductor and light-emitting diode (LED) component maker, has set aside RM50mil for phase one of its two expansion projects planned for this year.

Managing director Tay Kheng Chiong said the investment would be used to enhance the equipment and facilities at the company’s factory in Malacca as well as to complete its new factory in Laos.

The second factory, expected to be completed by June 2010, would enable D&O Ventures to raise production capacity and expand export network.

Tay said D&O Ventures expected its new subsidiary in Japan, AE Opto, a television (TV) backlight module provider, to be a major contributor to the group’s revenue this year.

“D&O Ventures owns 51% in the company. We still export LED components for the company while AE Opto will produce the TV backlight,” he said.

Tay said the company was very sure of AE Opto’s contribution as global TV manufacturers were more eager to produce LED-technology TVs rather than using mercury bulbs.

On D&O Ventures’ foreign markets, he said the company presently exported its products to six countries including South Korea, China and India.

“We always seek new opportunities and hopefully, we will secure a new deal with a Russian company next month,” he said.

Shareholders at the EGM approved the company’s proposed name change to D&O Green Technologies Bhd. — Bernama

TSMC Completes Fab 12, Phase 5 Construction

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd recently held a topping ceremony for its Fab 12, Phase 5 building located in the Hsinchu Science Park and announced that volume production is expected to begin in Q3 10.

Mark Liu, TSMC senior VP of operations said, "TSMC has always striven to improve its trinity of strengths —technology leadership, manufacturing excellence, and customer partnership—in order to provide steadfast support for our customers and to join with them to forge a powerful competitive force in the semiconductor industry."

He added, "The topping of our Fab 12, Phase 5 facility, and our plans to rapidly move in equipment and begin volume production there in Q3 10 is another example of our competitiveness in providing steadfast support for customers."

Fab 12, Phase 4 and 5 are TSMC's latest generation of production facilities designated for R&D as well as initial volume production. Phase 4 began volume production in Q3 09, while construction began on Phase 5 at the end of 2009. Phase 5 is expected to begin volume production in Q3 10 to satisfy urgent recent increases in customer demand.

In addition to volume production of 28nm products, Fab 12, Phase 5 will also serve as the base for R&D of 22nm and more advanced process technologies. Currently, TSMC is conducting R&D for 28nm and 22nm process technologies at its Fab 12, Phase 1 and 2 facilities, and will hand 28nm technology to the Phase 5 facility for volume production in Q4 10.

To meet customer needs, and in addition to capacity expansion at Fab 12, TSMC will also begin construction on Fab 14, Phase 4 located at its Tainan site. Groundbreaking is scheduled following the end of Chinese New Year, with the facility complete and ready for equipment move-in at the end of this year. These capacity expansion and technology development projects all attest to TSMC's determination to provide steadfast support for our customers.

TSMC also began a large-scale recruitment campaign in January, and expects to hire more than 3,000 semiconductor-related staff, primarily engineers.

Fab 12, Phases 4 and 5, have a total area of 7.83 hectares. It has a factory building with four levels above ground and two levels underground, for a total building area of 83,600m², and a clean room area of about 22,700m² (or about the size of three soccer fields).

Around 4,500 employees will be working in the Phase 4 and Phase 5 complex, with R&D and production line engineers numbering approximately 3,500 people.

The Fab, 12 Phase 5 building incorporated many green concepts in energy conservation and pollution control in its design, including a process water conservation rate of 85 percent, reclamation of rainwater, recirculation and reuse of general exhaust heat, and development of solar power generation and LED lighting applications. It has the goal of reaching zero emissions of greenhouse gases.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) announced on February 2 that it has spent nearly NT$6 billion (US$187.18 million) for front-end equipment procurement, cleanroom facilities and factory building construction. Faced with a better 2010, TSMC has sped up capacity expansion at its 12-inch (300mm) facilities.

TSMC said at its investors conference that the company aims to achieve a gross margin of 46-49% from its 40nm process at the end of 2010, which would be similar to the company's overall level. It also expects 28nm to bring in a solid contribution to its 2011 financial results.

In addition, TSMC revealed plans to kick off construction of a new factory building at its 12-inch fab (Fab 14, Phase 4) in southern Taiwan after the Lunar New Year holidays, with equipment move-in scheduled for year-end 2010.

Ontario Government Helps Group IV Semiconductor Expand at Carleton University

The Ontario Government is spending $3.6 million to help Group IV Semiconductor Inc. (Group IV), an Ottawa-based company, expand its fabrication facility at Carleton University and complete technology development. The company's technology could lead to low-cost solid-state (consisting of semiconductor materials and components in which current flow is through solid material rather than in a vacuum) light bulbs that will use up to 90 per cent less electricity than regular bulbs and last much longer, significantly cutting greenhouse gas emissions and reducing the waste burden on landfills. Currently the company employs 25 people and expects to increase this number to 44 over the next two years.

The nineteen new jobs are part of an investment from Ontario's Innovation Agenda.

Shanghai to Invest $658.7 Million in GSMC, HHNEC

The municipal government of Shanghai, in China, has decided to invest 4.5 billion yuan (US $658.7 million) in a new 12-inch (300mm) wafer fab, which is to be set up as a joint venture of Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (GSMC) and Hua Hong NEC (HHNEC).

Industry sources in China said the new fab – which will be to be located at the Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park in Shanghai – is likely to need a total investment of 14.5 billion yuan.

The joint venture, according to sources, could be the precursor to a merger between Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation and Hua Hong NEC.

Speculations about a merger of the two companies have been doing the rounds in China’s foundry industry for a long time.

While, Hua Hong NEC (HHNEC) supplies memory, mixed signal and logic processes ranging from 0.35- to 0.13-micron, Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (GSMC) is engaged in making embedded non-volatile memory, as well as high-voltage and low-leakage processes with technologies down to 0.13-micron.

The two companies had come close to a deal in 2009, according to reports. In a statement, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), the top foundry chipmaker based in China, remarked that it welcomes the joint venture by Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation and Hua Hong NEC. The SMIC, based at the Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park in Shanghai, operates three 8-inch fabs.

Samsung to Raise Chip Capex, Build New Line-Paper

Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, the world's biggest memory chip maker, will likely increase this year's investment for memory chips and build a new production line.

Samsung had said in October this year it planned to spend more than 5.5 trillion won in memory chips, which consumes most of its annual semiconductor business capex.

A Samsung spokesman declined to comment on 2010 investment plans and said no decision has been made on a possible new production line. Samsung is expected to give more details on its capex plans when it announces quarterly earnings.

The memory chip industry, recovering fast from a lengthy downturn, has seen drastic investment cuts in the past year and growth in supply is expected to be limited despite rising demand.

Even this year, memory chip makers, including No. 2 player Hynix Semiconductor Inc, are set to spend most of their budget in upgrading facilities, mostly migrating to finer circuitry rather than building new lines. ($1=1143.0 Won)