SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY
UPDATE
June 2011
McIlvaine Company
TABLE OF CONTENTS
IM Flash Technologies to Expand Facility
Renesas Electronics Announces Resumption of Wafer Lines Production at Naka Factory
Wacker Expands Polysilicon Production in Germany
IM Flash Technologies plans to expand its operations in Lehi, Utah. As part of the expansion, the NAND flash memory joint venture between Micron Technology and Intel Corporation plans to add 200 new highly paid jobs and expand production capacity at its semiconductor fabrication facility.
“IM Flash is an innovative global technology leader in NAND flash memory. Its Utah plant was first to market with IM Flash’s leading-edge technology, and the company continues to evolve its product line ahead of its competitors,” said Utah Governor Gary R. Herbert. “The technology industry that the Governor’s Office of Economic Development has targeted as a key economic indicator has shown incredible staying power by bringing long-term growth to the State, and it is showing continued signs of strength.”
IM Flash plans to add the 200 new employee positions starting in 2012 while maintaining its current staff levels of more than 1,400 employees. During the last five years, the company has paid out more than $532 million in wages and expects to pay an additional $1.4 billion in new state wages the next 10 years.
“IM Flash is a great success story in Utah for establishing a worldwide lead in memory technology and manufacturing capability since its inception just five years ago” said Keyvan Esfarjani, co-executive officer of IM Flash. “The success of IM Flash is enabled by a talented work force pool, investment commitment by Intel and Micron, as well as a very responsive state government in Utah in areas of taxation, regulation and infrastructure. This collective support has helped the company thrive and compete globally.”
New State tax revenue from the facility expansion is expected to exceed $153 million over a 10- year period, the major portion of which will go as new taxes for the Utah education fund. GOED voted in a special session to approve a post-performance, single taxpayer economic development tax incentive of $45.9 million as a post-performance EDTIF tax credit. The incentive will represent 30 percent of new state revenue collected over 10 years.
“The IM Flash success story over the past few years demonstrates that Utah has the innovation and productive workforce that can create great companies,” said Spencer Eccles, executive director of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development.
IM Flash Technologies has established a worldwide leadership position. In less than 5 years, IM Flash went from zero to over 15 percent market share of the industry’s flash memory. The company has also been recognized as the most innovative memory process technology in the world. Each NAND flash product contains thousands of patents and is utilized in almost every technology product using a “memory” device.
Utah exported $13.6 billion last year and nearly $2 billion of that came from computers and electronics, with the majority coming from the IM Flash plant.
Supporting local IM Flash operations are 99 companies with more than 600 additional employees who work on site. These employees are working in the State because of the fact that IM Flash is located in Utah and are in addition to the more than 1,700 employees that will be employed at the Lehi facility over the coming years.
Renesas Electronics Corporation released an updated production schedule for its Naka wafer fabrication factory in Hitachinaka, Ibaraki.
Having resumed mass production at both the 200- and 300-mm wafer fabrication lines, the key highlight of the new schedule is that Renesas expects it will be capable of significantly moving up the schedule by one month from the end of October to the end of September for when the supply (shipment) capacity will return to pre-earthquake levels. The second preliminary schedule includes two updates as follows: (1) Schedule for mass production at both the 200- and 300-mm wafer fabrication lines Renesas began test production on the 200-mm (8-inch) and 300-mm (12-inch) wafer fabrication lines on April 23 and April 25, respectively, and has achieved the same results as pre-earthquake levels in quality and reliability testing, etc.
Subsequently, Renesas succeeded in resuming mass production of both the 200-mm (8-inch) and 300-mm wafer fabrication lines from June 1 and June 6, respectively, as scheduled. (2) Expected timing on when the shipment capacity will return to that of pre-earthquake levels with additional supply from Renesas Group's other factories and outside foundries Having further accelerated the restoration steps for part of the manufacturing equipment at the Naka factory, Renesas now expects it will be capable of significantly moving up the schedule of when the shipment capacity will return to that of pre-earthquake levels with additional supply from other factories and outside foundries, from the end of October to the end of September.
Renesas Electronics will continue to focus all possible effort on the recovery work at the Naka factory. The company expresses gratitude for all the support it received from companies outside the Renesas Group, which helped to speed up the resumption of operation and move up the production schedule. (Note) While it is the company's intent to follow the above schedule to the best of its ability, the published dates may change. The schedule assumes a stable source of electrical power and no further damage from subsequent aftershocks.
About Renesas Electronics Corporation Renesas Electronics Corporation, the world's number one supplier of microcontrollers, is a premier supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions including microcontrollers, SoC solutions and a broad range of analog and power devices. Business operations began as Renesas Electronics in April 2010 through the integration of NEC Electronics Corporation and Renesas Technology Corp., with operations spanning research, development, design and manufacturing for a wide range of applications.
Headquartered in Japan, Renesas Electronics has subsidiaries in 20 countries worldwide.
Rapidly growing demand for digital consumer products has prompted NEC Electronics Corp. to launch construction of its second 300mm fab that will have a maximum capacity of 10,000 wafers a month.
NEC Electronic will start construction of its new 300mm line in May at its NEC Electronics Yamagata subsidiary in the northern district of mainland Japan. Total investment will be ¥5 billion (about $48 million). Construction will be complete by the end of the year, but the schedule for cleanroom construction and production equipment installation has yet to be disclosed.
NEC Electronics focuses on system-on-chip devices. "We produce system-on-chip LSIs depending on customers' demand. Thus we plan the investment in production facilities to satisfy the demand," Kaoru Tosaka, president of NEC Electronics, said recently.
The new fab will be gradually expanded. NEC Electronics is now preparing its first 300mm wafer line with a capacity of 4,000 wafers a month at the same site. It will begin operations by the end of 2014. The company uses an existing building for the first line in order to speed up operations.
Air Products has announced that its new electronic materials facility in Banwol, Korea has completed startup and is successfully on-line. The newly commercialized materials produced in this facility will enable semiconductor manufacturers to create advanced generation devices.
As device geometries continue to shrink in size, there are increasing needs for new dielectric materials to address process needs such as lower thermal budget, and filling of nanometer scale features. The Banwol facility enables flexible manufacturing of a wide variety of new dielectric products.
"The new materials produced at our Banwol facility, such as our AP-LTO and AP-LTN product lines, will enable deposition of silicon nitride and oxide films by Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD), Plasma Enhanced Atomic Layer Deposition (PEALD) and Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) for a variety of emerging applications including spacers, sacrificial films, protection layers, etch stops, and diffusion barriers," commented John Langan, director of technology and electronics at Air Products.
The materials manufactured in the Banwol facility will be incorporated into devices such as NAND Flash memory for portable electronics, DRAM to boost computer operating systems, advanced logic applications, and telecom applications like smartphones. In most cases, Air Products' new materials are jointly developed with industry leading tool suppliers and semiconductor manufacturers.
"Air Products is excited to be investing in the next generation materials our customers need to help develop cutting-edge portable devices, such as smartphones and tablet computers, now entering the market," said Corning Painter, vice president and general manager at Electronics for Air Products. "Air Products continues to be the leading supplier to the semiconductor, TFT-LCD and photovoltaic manufacturers on account of our technological advancements and ability to locate and grow with our customers."
Wacker Chemie AG will expand its production facilities for hyperpure polysilicon at its Burghausen and Nünchritz sites in Germany. By taking de-bottlenecking measures within its integrated production network, it will increase annual quantities at each site by 5,000 metric tons.
Burghausen's annual capacity will rise from some 32,000 metric tons now to about 37,000. At Nünchritz, the polysilicon facility currently under construction and due to come on stream by year-end was to have a production capacity of around 10,000 metric tons per year. Now, its capacity is increasing to 15,000 metric tons annually. First volumes from these expansion measures are expected to be available in 2012. The debottlenecking involves investments totaling some €130 million.
Wacker is also building a new polysilicon production facility in Cleveland, TN, US, with an annual capacity of 15,000 metric tons. It is expected to be completed by the end of 2013.
The expansion will enable Wacker to meet the continued rising global demand it expects for hyperpure polycrystalline silicon. Wacker has concluded a series of high-volume, multi-year contracts that also involve advance payments by customers for future deliveries. Thus, polysilicon from ongoing production in Burghausen and originally planned capacities in Nünchritz and Tennessee are essentially under contract until 2014.
Wacker's total hyperpure-polysilicon production capacity will increase to 67,000 metric tons by 2014. Wacker manufactured over 30,000 metric tons of hyperpure polysilicon in 2010, making it one of the top producers worldwide.
With the two polysilicon facilities currently under construction in Nünchritz and Cleveland, Wacker is strengthening its position as a leading supplier of high-quality semiconductor- and solar-grade silicon.
Wacker is a chemical company comprising Wacker Silicones, Wacker Polymers, Wacker Biosolutions, Wacker Polysilicon, and Siltronic.
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