SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY
UPDATE
July 2011
McIlvaine Company
TABLE OF CONTENTS
3M Expansion of U.S. Development Laboratory for Semiconductor CMP Products
Dresden Site Gets $311 Million for Fab
Globalfoundries’ New Manufacturing Facilities Ready for Equipment Installation
Rubicon, GT Solar Ramp Production of Wafers
Rubicon Gets ISO Certification
3M, a supplier of chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) Pad Conditioners and Fixed Abrasives for semiconductors, announced the completion of an expansion of 3M's development laboratory and cleanroom located at its headquarters in Saint Paul, Minn.
According to a release, the expansion includes a 300mm CMP tool and defect metrology for product and application development.
The Company said an Applied Materials 300mm Reflexion CMP tool enables 3M to simulate customers' 300mm process conditions for developing and testing new CMP pad conditioners and fixed abrasive products. In addition, a KLA-Tencor Surfscan SP2 Wafer Inspection Tool gives 3M in-house capabilities to develop new CMP consumables that have ultra-low defect performance for the most advanced semiconductor processes.
"The addition of the 300mm CMP tool and the Surfscan SP2 wafer inspection tools demonstrate 3M's continued commitment to providing the semiconductor industry with new and innovative materials," said Dr. Philip Clark, laboratory manager for 3M. "With these new capabilities we are able to help customers implement process enabling pad conditioner solutions faster for even the most advanced process nodes."
The European Union has approved a $311 million financial aid package for GlobalFoundries to expand its computer chip factory in Dresden, Germany.
GlobalFoundries, which is currently building a $4.6 billion factory in Malta, is spending more than $2 billion to expand what's known as Fab 1 in Dresden by 110,000 square feet.
The company announced that the new Fab 1 cleanroom is ready for manufacturing tools to be installed and would increase its production in Dresden to 80,000 wafers per month.
Computer chip makers like GlobalFoundries make chips on 8-inch and 12-inch silicon wafers. The wafers, which hold hundreds of chips, are processed in manufacturing equipment known as "tools" over a 10-week period. Each tool can cost between $5 million and $50 million.
The EU's approval of the German aid package comes just a few weeks after GlobalFoundries failed to get a commitment from New York state for a financial aid deal for a second factory in Malta; similar to the $1.4 billion package negotiated in 2006 for the factory now under construction at the Luther Forest Technology Campus.
GlobalFoundries, which has the financial backing of the government of Abu Dhabi, announced the Dresden expansion a year ago. The company also has several factories in Singapore that process 8-inch wafers in addition to one factory there that uses 12-inch wafer technology. The Malta factory, known as Fab 8, will use 12-inch technology.
An announcement by the EU said the financial aid to GlobalFoundries included both a grant and tax breaks, although a more detailed breakdown of the terms was not yet available.
Talks between GlobalFoundries and the Cuomo administration appeared to have broken down last month over the company's request for cash, which was included in the previous deal with the state. GlobalFoundries used $665 million in cash from that deal to fund most of the construction of the building that houses Fab 8. The company is now starting to install as much as $6 billion in tools in its 300,000-square-foot cleanroom in preparation of starting wafer production next year.
GlobalFoundries also announced that it has hired Kevin Kimball, a Saratoga County native, as its new head of global corporate communications. Kimball will be located in Silicon Valley, where GlobalFoundries has its headquarters.
Globalfoundries, a leading contract maker of semiconductors, said that its newest manufacturing facilities in Dresden, Germany, and Saratoga, New York, have reached “ready for equipment” status, which means that the construction works are essentially done and actual tools that are used to make chips can now be installed.
At Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany, Globalfoundries has completed construction of an additional wafer manufacturing facility designed to add capacity at 45nm and below, which has the potential to increase the overall output of the Fab 1 campus to 80 thousand wafers per month once fully ramped. The expansion project will add more than 110 thousand square feet of cleanroom space to the site and will allow Fab 1 to operate as one integrated cleanroom. This extension will make Dresden the largest wafer fab in Europe for leading-edge technology.
At Fab 8, Globalfoundries’ newest semiconductor manufacturing facility under construction at the Luther Forest Technology Campus in Saratoga County, NewYork, the RFE date was moved up by nearly two months to meet heavy customer demands. Last week, Globalfoundries moved into the facility’s admin 1 office building and broke ground on the admin 2 building.
Once completed, Fab 8 will stand as the most technologically advanced wafer fab in the world and the largest leading-edge semiconductor foundry in the United States, the company hopes. When fully built-out and ramped, the total available cleanroom space will be approximately 300 thousand square feet and will be capable of a total output of approximately 60,000 wafers per month. The total facility, including cleanroom support infrastructure and office space, includes approximately 1.9 million square feet of space and is expected to come online in 2012 with volume production targeted for early 2013. Fab 8 will focus on leading-edge manufacturing at 28nm and below.
“At Globalfoundries, we continue to invest aggressively in driving sustained growth on advanced technologies. The build-out of our 300mm manufacturing campuses in New York and Dresden is supporting growing customer demand for advanced technologies, while creating hundreds of jobs and providing a significant boost to the economies in the surrounding regions. By completing these massive construction projects on schedule and on budget, we are continuing to deliver on our commitment to being the only truly global foundry,” said Ajit Manocha, chief executive officer of Globalfoundries.
WACKER began operating several silicone-polymer production lines at its Burghausen, Germany, site, expanding production of high-purity specialty silicones, encapsulation and coating compounds, as well as UV-activated silicones. Wacker added a new cleanroom facility to the site to meet the purity standards of semiconductors, LEDs, and other applications.
The new facility meets WACKER's novel Clean Operations principles, said Dr. Bernd Pachaly, head of the Engineering Silicones business unit. These include housing production, filling and logistics separately with airlock entrances; strict regulation on filling operations; and special stipulations regarding clothing and hygiene, air, and particle filters. The facility meets the ISO standard for class 8 cleanrooms. Production steps are all monitored and documented constantly.
The new clean-operations facility produces highly specialized LUMISIL, SEMICOSIL, and WACKER SilGel silicone products for encapsulating and coating electronic components; as well as other products for medical uses. There is also a production line for UV silicones.
Wacker Chemie AG produces chemicals for various end-use sectors, such as WACKER POLYSILICON Polysilicon for the semiconductor and photovoltaics industries and Siltronic Hyperpure silicon wafers and monocrystals for semiconductor devices.
Rubicon Technology is beginning volume production of 6-inch and 8-inch sapphire wafers at its state-of-the-art facility in Penang, Malaysia, while GT Solar is investing $27 million to triple its sapphire production capacity in Salem, Mass.
Sapphire-wafer manufacturer Rubicon Technology has announced it is moving into volume production of 6-inch polished sapphire wafers at its facility in Penang, Malaysia based on its recently-completed qualification by a key customer. The facility is also capable of processing and polishing 8-inch wafers to customers in R&D volumes.
Meanwhile, GT Solar, a rival manufacturer which acquired Crystal Systems a year ago, is spending $27 million to ramp volume production of sapphire wafers at its state-of-the-art facility in Salem, Mass. Several LED manufacturers are currently transitioning to production on 6-inch sapphire wafers including LG Innotek, Philips Lumileds and Lextar Electronics.
Typically, LED producers must re-qualify new wafer-manufacturing facilities by successfully producing LED chips on the wafers and testing the chips in specific applications. Existing Rubicon customers who previously purchased 6-inch wafers from its US facility in Batavia, IL have been re-qualifying the Malaysia facility.
Rubicon’s press release also states that the Malaysia facility also successfully completed ISO 90001:2008 certification.
Raja Parvez, Rubicon president and CEO said in a statement, “The location and capabilities of our manufacturing facilities around the globe minimizes the risk of business interruption while lowering cost and providing proximity to our valued Asian customers.”
GT Solar International, Inc. (Merrimack, NH), celebrated the grand opening of its new 20,000 square foot sapphire production facility in Salem, Mass. The plant opening concludes a project that began in the fall of 2010.
“We’ve leveraged forty years of crystal growth expertise from Crystal Systems and combined it with GT’s successful track record of rapid scale-up of commercial crystalline growth technology to create a new state-of-the-art sapphire manufacturing facility capable of producing predictable and repeatable high quality sapphire crystal run after run,” Tom Gutierrez, GT Solar’s president and CEO said in a statement.
In related news, GT Solar International announced it is anticipating a strong year-end backlog due to demand for its sapphire furnaces.
The company expects first-quarter fiscal 2012 revenue to be $225 million, up from a prior estimate range of $140 million to $150 million. The expected backlog at the end of fiscal 2012 is at least $1.6 billion, up from a previous estimate of $1 billion.
GT Solar raised its first-quarter earnings per share estimate to 30 cents, up from its prior forecast of between 8 cents and 11 cents.
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