Applied Teams with Silicon Genesis to Develop Doping Techniques

-- Semiconductor International, 8/1/1999

Applied Materials Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.), and Silicon Genesis Corp. (SiGen) have teamed up to further develop and commercialize plasma doping technologies for ion implantation and other process applications in future chip designs.

Although in an early stage of commercial development, plasma doping has been shown to offer potential advantages in throughput and cost because the entire wafer can be implanted at once. In addition to ion implantation, the basic process can be used for other material modification applications in both wafer and device manufacturing.

In another development, Applied made an equity investment in Triant Technologies, Inc. (Nanaimo, British Columbia), by signing and closing two definitive agreements.

Under a private placement agreement, Applied acquired a 12.5% equity in Triant for $2.2M. Under a separate license agreement, Applied became the exclusive semiconductor industry VAR of Triant's equipment health monitoring and fault detection software technology. This agreement is expected to enhance Applied's process systems and Consilium software offerings.

The license agreement grants Applied the right to market a future version of Triant's equipment health monitoring and fault detection software with its own products and services. Triant will receive a fee for each license shipped, and will continue to license its end user version of ModelWare/RT to semiconductor manufacturers for retrofit on all makes and models of wafer processing equipment using existing and new distribution channels. Triant also retains all rights to license its software technology for use in other industries.