Company News
Staff -- Semiconductor International, 7/1/2003
- Gartner Inc.'s Dataquest (San Jose) reported that worldwide semiconductor photoresist sales reached $690.6M in 2002. Driven by the premium-priced DUV resists, which outstripped every other product segment, this figure represented a 2.7% increase over 2001 photoresist revenues. DUV resist sales increased 10.3% in 2002, and account for 40% of the photoresist market. JSR and Arch Chemicals were the only vendors among the Top 5 to see an increase in worldwide resist revenues in 2002, with JSR gaining on Shipley for the No. 2 slot. TOK remained at No. 1 with 21.5% market share.
- Schott Lithotec (Jena, Germany) and Veeco Instruments Inc. (Woodbury, N.Y.) announced a joint-development agreement to focus on advanced photomask technology and particle reduction for next-generation photomask blanks. Schott Lithotec will provide materials and process expertise in blanks, and Veeco will provide expertise in low-defect ion-beam deposition. The research will take place in New York, where both companies have production and R&D facilities, as well as in Germany.
- ASML MaskTools (Santa Clara, Calif.) announced that Nanya Technology Corp. (Taoyuan, Taiwan) has licensed its software and IP for deployment in Nanya's advanced semiconductor fabs. Nanya, a top DRAM manufacturer, will use MaskTools' MaskRigger software to implement Scattering Bar technology on its photomasks.
- Infineon Technologies (Munich, Germany) and Clariant Corp.'s AZ Electronic Materials business (Somerville, N.J.) have signed an agreement to jointly develop photoresists for 157 nm exposure technology. The goal is to accelerate qualification of the technology for volume production. The resists developed will enable Infineon to qualify its 157 nm technology for producing 55 nm structures in DRAM chips.
- ASML (Veldhoven, Netherlands) received a multiple product order from wafer foundry Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. (ASMC, Shanghai, China). ASMC chose three imaging systems — two PAS 5500/250s and one PAS 5500/300 — as the exclusive lithography tools for the initial ramp-up of its new 200 mm wafer fab.
- Ultratech Stepper Inc. (San Jose) has eliminated "Stepper" from its name, calling itself Ultratech Inc. to reflect entry into new markets outside its core optical stepper arena, including advanced interconnect bump processing, blue lasers, optical LCD applications and laser thermal processing. Meanwhile, Ultratech has made VLSI Research Inc.'s annual Top 10 list for customer satisfaction for the sixth consecutive year. The award is based on an independent global survey of semiconductor companies.
- JMAR Technologies Inc. (San Diego) announced that its Research Division has received $2.6M in funding under its previously announced $34.5M Department of Defense contract. The funds, along with an additional $2.6M expected later this year, will be used to complete a collimated plasma lithography (CPL) beta system for the compound semiconductor market.
- IPC (Northbrook, Ill.) has begun a comprehensive study of the three leading lead-free alloys in an effort to analyze the properties of each. The research will cover assembly performance and basic materials properties, such as wetting, phase structure of the materials, thermal shock performance, long-term thermal cycling behavior and solder joint reliability.
- Kulicke & Soffa Industries Inc. (Willow Grove, Pa.) has developed a capillary that permits the use of thicker wires in fine pitch and ultrafine pitch (UFP) applications for improved production yields and bonding performance. The CIC capillary contains most of the additional gold generated from a free air ball during bonding in its inner chamfer, instead of allowing the gold to exceed the bond pad area during the first bond formation. By reducing the production of large ball diameters, the CIC capillary enables the use of thicker wire bonding for UFP applications (<50 µm).
