INDUSTRY NEWS

EXPANSIONS AND ACQUISITIONS

Eaton starts $22M expansion

An applications laboratory, training center, and enlarged manufacturing plant are all part of a $22-million expansion plan announced by Eaton's semiconductor equipment operations. The program will enable the supplier to showcase its entire line of process equipment. Offerings include ion implantation, RTP, photoresist process, and photoresist dry strip tools. The training center at Eaton SEO's headquarters in Beverly, MA, will open in the first half of 2001. The expanded plant in Rockville, MD, will be used to manufacture 200- and 300-mm dry strip and photostabilization systems.

QAM completes buyout

Quality Assurance Management (QAM) of Carrollton, TX, has finished a buyout of the QA/QC service provider from parent company U.S. Filter/Vivendi. QAM says it is the world's largest supplier of independent third-party quality assurance and quality control services. The company employs more than 160 engineers, inspectors, and technicians throughout the world. Sales in FY99 were $12.5 million. QAM bought Response Maintenance Services in February 1999 in order to expand its offerings to include cleanroom certification, custom plastic fabrication, and related cleanroom construction support capabilities.

Tower, National sign pact

Israel-based Tower Semiconductor will manufacture ICs for National Semiconductor of Santa Clara, CA, under the terms of two-year agreement. A steady customer of the foundry, National makes system-on-a-chip products for personal computer, communications, and consumer uses. Tower will use its core CMOS and nonvolatile memory technologies to make the devices.

Partners create Mosaic

Mosaic is the name Rodel and Shipley's microelectronics unit have given to their new materials and process technology partnership. The name stands for "metallization and organic solutions for advanced integrated circuits." The turnkey program is designed to provide clients with an integrated set of materials and processes for manufacturing semiconductors with linewidths 0.13-µm using methods such as dual damascene. The partners assert that the program's flexibility will help customers to achieve rapid and more reliable ramp-ups than before. Phoenix-based Rodel makes CMP slurries and consumables. Shipley of Marlborough, MA, is a supplier of chemicals and photoresists. Both companies are subsidiaries of Rohm and Haas, a $6-billion specialty chemical manufacturer. Scott Loncki, chief growth officer for Rodel, is director of the Mosaic program.

Pfeiffer increases support

Pfeiffer Vacuum has modernized and enlarged a plant acquired in the purchase of a Silicon Valley­based vacuum service firm last year. The improvements have enabled Pfeiffer, which is based in Nashua, NH, to more than double its customer service and support capacity. The 23,400-sq-ft facility in Milpitas, CA, enhances Pfeiffer's ability to repair and service its line of turbo, rotary vane, dry, and diaphragm pumps. The company will also repair and service instruments such as quadrupole mass spectrometers and helium leak detectors. The upgraded support center is located in a building formerly owned by Semivac, which Pfeiffer bought in May 1999.

BOC buys scrubber technology

BOC Edwards of Wilmington, MA, has purchased the wet scrubber technology of Gradient Point for an undisclosed sum. The BOC Group subsidiary says it will manufacture the scrubbers at its plant in Tempe, AZ, where Gradient Point is based. The acquisition extends the vendor's exhaust management product line. The scrubbers use a water-based treatment to remove process gas exhaust at the point of use.

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