Company News
Staff -- Semiconductor International, 5/1/2002
- DuPont Photomasks Inc. (DPI, Round Rock, Texas) acquired BindKey Technologies Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.), which develops EDA software solutions to solve IC manufacturing issues during the design phase. Meanwhile, DPI has sold its photoblank business unit to Schott Lithotec USA Corp., a subsidiary of Schott Lithotec AG (Jena, Germany). DPI also entered into a long-term photoblank supply agreement with Schott, and the companies formed a strategic alliance to jointly develop advanced photoblanks.
- ASML (Veldhoven, Netherlands) announced that its Twinscan and PAS 5500 lithography systems achieved SEMI E78, Level 1 compliance certification. The company is the first lithography tool supplier to achieve compliance with the electrostatic compatibility standard, demonstrating the absence of electrostatic charging of reticles and wafers in its tools.
- Photronics Inc. (Jupiter, Fla.) has acquired an additional 28% interest in maskmaker PKL Co. Ltd. (Chungnam, Korea). As a result, Photronics now owns 78.8% of PKL.
- ASML MaskTools Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.) has sold its MaskRigger product to Macronix International Co. Ltd. (Taipei, Taiwan) for performing optical proximity correction (OPC) across multiple generations of specialized memory devices.
- SUSS MicroTec (Munich, Germany) has introduced a mask protection technology (MPT) developed to reduce mask costs and increase yield through the reduction of particle contamination. The technology will extend the productivity and resolution of 1:1 full-field lithography systems.
- August Technology (Minneapolis) shipped its 50th bump inspection system. The NSX-95 systems, in combination with YieldPilot data analysis software, provide device manufacturers with process enhancing information through high-speed, automated, 2-D/3-D inspection and data analysis. The NXS systems detect defects to 0.5µm.
- HPL Technologies (San Jose), a provider of yield optimization solutions, announced that it has acquired Massachusetts-based Defect & Yield Management Inc. (DYM), which provides defect reduction and yield management software, for $2M in cash and 1,050,000 shares of HPL common stock for a total of about $16.5M. With the acquisition, HPL will add analysis, data type integration and application development capability to its new and installed base of Odyssey and YielDirector systems. The company expects to report earnings of $77M-$80M for fiscal 2003.
- Jon Goldman Associates Inc. (Orange, Calif.), maker of data capture and process management software, is acquiring Integrated Control Concepts Inc. (ICCI, Hollis, N.H.). ICCI manufactures custom control software for diffusion and LPCVD tools. Jon Goldman has been providing software for use on Thermco and TEL furnaces, among other tools, for over a decade.
- PDF Solutions (San Jose) introduced Design-Based Yield Improvement (DBYI), a program that specifically addresses the needs of fabless companies. Available for 0.15 and 0.13 µm technologies, such design-for-manufacturing approaches are becoming more important as layout-level decisions are more significantly impacting production yield. The program allows fabless chipmakers to optimize their IC designs for better product yield, matched to the manufacturing processes of a specific foundry.
- Tokyo Electron Texas (TEX, Austin, Texas) will become the exclusive R&D facility in the United States for Tokyo Electron's (TEL) lithography processes and advanced integrated metrology technologies. To support the new R&D activity, 35 people will transfer from other TEL subsidiaries to focus on development. The facility currently houses a Customer Demonstration Facility with state-of-the-art lithography and low-k spin-on dielectric (SOD) tools and associated metrology equipment.
- KLA-Tencor Corp. (San Jose) plans to expand its infrastructure in China by opening a support center that will serve as an application and service center for the entire Asia-Pacific region (excluding Japan).
- Semiconductor Technologies & Instruments (STI, Plano, Texas) received a repeat order to ship its third WAV 1000 automated wafer inspection system to a major wafer foundry in Taiwan.
- International SEMATECH (ISMT, Austin, Texas) won this year's Climate Protection Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for its work to reduce PFC emissions. ISMT is one of 20 companies from Canada, Chile, Japan, Italy and the United States to be recognized by the EPA.
- Ashland Taiwan Co. Ltd. (ATCL, Hsinchu, Taiwan) reorganized and expanded its chemical distribution in Asia. ATCL, the product sales and customer service arm of Ashland Specialty Chemical Co.’s Electronic Chemicals Division in Greater China, provides technical support for the entire Asian region.
- Comdel (Gloucester, Mass.) became the first rf power manufacturer to pass Open DeviceNet Vendor Association (ODVA) DeviceNet conformance testing. Testing was carried out on the company's family of CX and CLX systems, and all tested products were certified.
- SoftSwitching Technologies Corp. (Middleton, Wis.) raised $17M in private equity financing. GE Equity and GE Capital's Structured Finance Group led the round.
- Envirotronics (Grand Rapids, Mich.) opened a new branch of its subsidiary, Envirotronics Asia Sdn. Bdh., in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In addition, the company named Golden-Tech Technologies as its agent in Taiwan.
