Company News

-- Semiconductor International, 11/1/1999

  PRI Automation Inc. (Billerica, Mass.) received a full factory automation order from a large Southeast Asia semiconductor manufacturer. The order includes AeroTrak overhead monorail system, TurboStocker 200 wafer storage system and TransNet material control software. It will be installed in the new 200 mm wafer processing foundry.

   Medtronic Inc. (Minneapolis) has changed the name of its Tempe, Ariz., division from Medtronic Micro-Rel to the Medtronic Microelectronics Center. The division develops and pro-vides full custom integrated circuits, IC foundry services and custom microelectronics.

   TECH Semiconductor Pte. Ltd. (Singapore) has purchased multiple Producer CVD sys-tems from Applied Materials Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.). The systems have begun being shipped to the Woodland facility in northern Singapore.

   Boxer Cross Inc. (BX, Menlo Park, Calif.) formed a partnership with Marketech International Corp. (Taiwan). Marketech is the exclusive distributor in Taiwan for BX's in-line electri-cal measurement systems.

   Ultratech Stepper Inc. (San Jose, Calif.) received its first order for its Saturn Spectrum 3 wafer stepper from Casio Computer Co. Ltd. The system is slated for immediate delivery at Casio's Core Technology Research Laboratory in Ome-shi, Japan.

   Leica Microsystems Lithography GmbH (Wetzlar, Germany) installed its ZBA31H+ elec-tron beam mask writer at a Taiwan Mask Corp. (TMC) facility in Hsin-Chu. The system will be used initially for 0.25 µm production masks and then ramped up to the 0.18 µm production level.

   Luwa Lepco's (Houston, Texas) membrane diffusion department obtained ISO 9001 certi-fication. The certification process took 14 months to be completed by a quality registrar.

   Trikon Technologies Inc. (Newport, Wales, U.K.) received orders from a major U.S. cor-poration covering PVD, CVD and plasma etch. These will be used in a facility making high-fre-quency devices for wireless communications.

   Cimetrix Inc. (Salt Lake City, Utah) signed a definitive agreement to merge with Systematic Designs International Inc. (SDI, Vancouver, Wash.). SDI will remain in Vancouver with the current management team and focus on SECS/GEM software as a wholly owned subsidi-ary of Cimetrix.

   Sputtered Films (Santa Barbara, Calif.) sold the Shamrock product line to ASTeX (Wo-burn, Mass.). The sale of the line's assets was completed on August 25. Sputtered Films now focuses all company resources on the ENDEAVOR AT cluster system.

   SAES Getters S.p.A. (Milan, Italy) announced the beginning of operations of a new sub-sidiary, SAES Getters S.p.A. Moscow Representative Office (Moscow, Russia). The subsidi-ary will continue to further advance collaboration with technological and scientific resources in Russia.

   The Bureau Veritas Quality International (N.A.) Inc. has certified Co-planar Inc. (Rocka-way, N.J.) ISO-9002 compliant.

   Sapphire Software (Fremont, Calif.) appointed Information Technology Inc. as a sales rep-resentative for Sapphires semiconductor and ERP interface products in the Taiwan market.

   Komatsu Ltd. (Tochigi, Japan) installed its first G20K, a 2 kHz DUV excimer laser light source, at a major Japanese chip manufacturer. It will be used for mass production of silicon wafers.

   The Dow Chemical Co. (Midland, Mich.) and Hitachi Chemical Co. (Tokyo) signed a co-operative business agreement related to semiconductor grade materials. Under terms of the agreement, Hitachi Chemical will provide sales services, technical support, warehousing and distribution of Dow's SiLK and Cyclotene dielectric resins and ancillary chemicals for the interlayer dielectric market. In addition Dow's Advanced Electronics Materials Business pur-chased Eaton Semiconductor Equipment Operations' (Beverly, Mass.) Compact II fast ramp vertical furnace. The furnace will be part of Dow's Coat & Cure development facility.

   Asyst Technologies Inc. (Fremont, Calif.) received orders for ~$8M in standard mechani-cal interface equipment from UMC Group, a Taiwanese foundry. The equipment will be used to produce advanced integrated circuits using interconnect technologies such as copper and aluminum. Asyst also received multiple orders for its Plus Portal (valued at more than $1.5B) from four leading semiconductor equipment manufacturers. It will be used for etch, inspection, metrology and test applications.

   ASM International N.V. (Bilthoven, Netherlands) has reported that its subsidiary, ASM Europe BV, received a multiple-system, multimillion-dollar order from Infineon Technologies for its Advanced 400 vertical furnace. Delivery is scheduled for the fourth quarter. They also reported that ASM Pacific Technology Ltd. received multiple orders for its AB339 wire bonder from two new customers. One committed to more than 100 bonders, and the other purchased 50 sets of bonders and several automolding and trim-form systems.

   Karl Suss (Waterbury Center, N.Y.) completed a multiple tool installation at Lucas NovaSensor. The installed tools include a mask aligner for front to backside aligned exposure operations, a bond aligner and a substrate bonder. In addition, the Berkeley Sensor & Actuator Center (BSAC, Berkeley, Calif.) selected Suss equipment to expand its MEMS R&D de-velopment activities. A SUSS MA/BA6 was installed for front to backside aligned lithography with tooling for alignment prior to substrate bonding and a SUSS SB6 substrate bonder.