Company News
-- Semiconductor International, 8/1/2001
August Technology Corp. (Bloomington, Minn.) signed a business agreement with a leading data supplier of data storage technology. The multi-year agreement includes the volume purchase of additional NSX series inspection systems that will be installed in the customer's U.S. and European facilities.IMEC (Leuven, Belgium) has non-exclusively licensed its Rotagoni drying technique to Verteq Inc. It has been integrated into Verteq's Goldfinger single-wafer cleaning system. In addition, IMEC announced the start of a new two-year program to develop a 0.18 µm BiCMOS manufacturing process that will ease the manufacture of rf devices.
PRI Automation Inc. (Billerica, Mass.) and KLA-Tencor Corp. (San Jose) entered into an alliance designed to accelerate yield management and process control in 300 mm fabs. The alliance resulted in the TransFab Metroliner system, which consists of PRI's AeroLoader III overhead transport vehicles and TransNet material control software, along with KLA-Tencor's full line of 300 mm metrology and inspection systems.
FEI Co. (Hillsboro, Ore.) initiated a program with KLA-Tencor to deliver a complete e-beam defect inspection, review, analysis and characterization line to manage technology shifts and accelerate yields on sub-0.13 µm copper processes. As part of the program, KLA-Tencor will host an FEI Altura 865 system, along with its own eS20XP inspection and eV300 SEM review tools, at its new e-beam demo center at its Silicon Valley campus.
Pac Tech GmbH (Santa Clara, Calif.) signed a lease for a new, larger facility in Santa Clara. The 10,000 ft2 facility will serve as the central U.S. sales and service location for wafer bumping customers.
AIXTRON AG (Aachen, Germany) received an order for another AIX 2600G3 Planetary Reactor system from Showa Denko. It will fabricate structures for the wireless communications market.
Lambda Physik AG (Gottingen, Germany) opened a production facility for UV excimer lasers. It has moved its entire production of lithography lasers to the new 3155 m2 plant. The second phase of the expansion calls for 18 more laser testing stations for engineering, assembly and final testing. Operations are set to begin in October.
Cree Inc. (Durham, N.C.) expanded its 50 mm wafer product line to include 4H and 6H off-axis, n-type SiC wafers. This expansion should enable high-volume device production.
L-Tech Corp. (Mountain View, Calif.) and AIO Corp. (Fremont, Calif.) announced a final agreement on terms for the transfer of Vaporless IPA Dryer technology from AIO to L-Tech. The terms include purchase of remaining parts, WIP inventory and the transfer of unfilled AIO orders to L-Tech.
Aegis Industrial Software Corp. (Philadelphia) opened its new headquarters. The custom-configured 20,000 ft2 facility serves as the worldwide center for product development, applications engineering, marketing, sales and customer support. It accommodates three simultaneous training sessions and/or demonstration sessions in multimedia centers.
Matheson Tri-Gas (Parsippany, N.J.) received ISO-9002 certification of its gas production and filling plant in Johnsonville, Tenn. This certification covers all operations related to hydrogen sulfide production.
KDF (Rockleigh, N.J.) received a contract to manufacture PVD systems from Tokyo Electron Ltd. (TEL). The outsourcing contract covers the production of TEL's Eclipse single-wafer PVD tool.
Intelligent Micro Patterning LLC (St. Petersburg, Fla.) established operations to commercialize maskless photolithography processes. The technology uses advanced micro-optical techniques to project images directly onto electronic substrates without the use of photomasks. The techniques were developed at the University of South Florida and are exclusively licensed to Intelligent Micro Patterning.
Ultratech Stepper Inc. (San Jose) received two follow-on orders for 300 mm bump lithography systems from a major U.S. microprocessor manufacturer. The systems will be used to manufacture high-resolution microprocessors at two of the customer's 300 mm fabs. Installation is scheduled for the first quarter of 2002.
Semitool Inc. (Kalispell, Mont.) received a multi-system order for its Millennium 300 single-wafer processor from a Japanese semiconductor development consortium. The tools will be used in a variety of critical surface preparation applications for next-generation devices.
Alcatel selected Universal Instruments' (Binghamton, N.Y.) Polaris assembly cell to automate assembly of odd form components. The tool is installed in Alcatel's Brest, France, facility.
Karl Suss (Munich, Germany), in conjunction with Dow Chemical Co. (Midland, Mich.) and Fraunhofer IZM (Berlin), successfully used photosensitive Cyclotene low-k material (BCB) to coat, expose, develop and cure 5 µm layers. The companies carried out the work to demonstrate Cyclotene's effectiveness on 300 mm wafers.
Applied Epi (St. Paul, Minn.) had its GEN2000 MBE system qualified for production by RF Micro Devices Inc. It is being used by RF Micro Devices to grow HBTs and can be configured for 100 or 200 mm wafers.
Dow Corning Corp. (Midland Mich.) opened a PECVD dielectrics application laboratory in a Class 1 certified cleanroom for customer sampling and process integration work. The facility houses a state-of-the-art cleanroom with an Applied Materials DxZ PECVD system and advanced thin-film analysis equipment.
Axcelis Technologies Inc. (Beverly, Mass.) and Dow Corning Corp. are working together to develop a process that enables use of porous ultralow-k dielectric materials in next-generation semiconductor manufacturing. Developed as part of an ongoing joint development program, the new process provides mechanical strength for a porous low-k dielectric and was demonstrated using Dow's XLK spin-on dielectric.
Heraeus Quarzglas and Heraeus Tenevo (Hanau, Germany) were certified under the new, process-oriented quality standard DIN EN ISO 9001:2000, in conjunction with the Business Excellence Model. The German Society for the Certification of Management Systems, DQS, certified all of the two companies' German production sites.
Microsemi Corp. (Irvine, Calif.) entered into an alliance with Nitronex Corp. (Raleigh, N.C.) to fabricate a line of blue and ultraviolet LEDs on silicon substrates. The alliance primarily aims to develop cost-effective, large junction-area glass hermetic flip-chip devices that eliminate any epoxy packaging.
