INDUSTRY NEWS

EXPANSIONS AND ACQUISITIONS

Air separations plant opens

Air Liquide America has opened a $30-million air separations plant in Denver that will serve semiconductor customers and other high-tech industries in the region. The plant will produce 500 tons per day of gaseous oxygen and nitrogen. The facility replaces a plant producing 300 tons per day.

Firms plan slurry venture

Wacker Silicones of Adrian, MI, and Arch Chemicals launched a joint venture in January to produce CMP slurries. The companies will combine Wacker's expertise in manufacturing fumed silica products and Arch's capabilities in electronic materials production. Arch's headquarters is in Norwalk, CT. The partners hope to tap into a worldwide market for CMP slurries valued, they say, at more than $200 million.

ATMI refocuses materials unit

Citing market consolidation as the impetus, ATMI has reorganized its semiconductor materials business to take advantage of several acquisitions the company has made over the past three years. The materials unit will take on a more global focus as the Danbury, CT­based supplier attempts to reach critical mass following the purchase of vendors such as NOW Technologies and ACSI. The business unit supplies specialty materials and delivery systems and represents approximately half of ATMI's total annual revenues. ATMI Materials appointed Dan Marks vice president of sales for the unit. Marks most recently served as senior director of marketing and business development for the thermal products unit of Applied Materials.

Aera touts InPod buy

Aera says its recent acquisition of InPod will enable the MFC manufacturer to offer customers improved chemical delivery capability. Based in Austin, TX, InPod manufactures chemical delivery substrate pods. Aera says it will integrate its mass-flow controllers and InPod's chemical delivery systems to offer OEMs and chipmakers a complete gas panel tool. Greg Hollingshead, COO of Austin-based Aera, says an integrated system will reduce "contamination variables." InPod's technology allows users to run single-wafer, multiprocess gas recipes in a single gas line instead of having to operate dedicated lines for each process gas, says Aera.

Metrology deal adds depth

Staking a further claim for leadership in 3-D metrology capabilities, FEI has become the exclusive North American and European distributor of Surface/Interface's Stylus NanoProfilometer tool under the terms of a new strategic agreement. The pact gives Hillsboro, OR­based FEI equity interest of approximately 10% in Surface/Interface of Sunnyvale, CA, with the option of raising its stake to 191/2%. FEI says the deal will enable it to move 3-D critical dimension measurement and analysis into manufacturing lines for ICs with geometries 0.18 µm as well as 300-mm wafer processing. FEI's 3-D tool allows users to examine subsurface design features. The Surface/Interface in-line system extracts deep submicron, CD surface topography from wafers, photomasks, and other substrates. The NanoProfilometer costs between $1 million and $1.3 million.

MicroHome | Search | Current Issue | MicroArchives
Buyers Guide | Media Kit