INDUSTRY NEWS

Asia

SEZ opens Singapore office

SEZ Group has enhanced its presence in Asia by opening a regional office in Singapore. SEZ Singapore takes over the operations of Techpoint PacifIC, the vendor's local representative. The two companies ended their agreement by mutual consent, allowing Austria-based SEZ to assume control of the rep's sales network. The Singapore office will support the SEZ line of spin process systems, many of which are installed in the country's foundries. Singapore's growing foundry business prompted SEZ to establish the new office.

Partners to build flash fab

Joint venture partners AMD and Fujitsu have announced plans to build a flash memory chip plant in Japan. Construction of the fab in northeastern Japan is set to begin in August. Production of the flash memory devices is scheduled to begin in February 2001. The partners say they will make up to 13 million devices per month by March 2002, and that monthly capacity will be increased to 52 million chips by March 2003. The new fab will primarily produce 16-Mb ICs.

Demand for the flash memory devices, which are used in a variety of consumer electronic products such as digital cameras, will grow by 91% in 2000, according to Fujitsu. The plant will be located in Fukushima Prefecture, approximately 150 miles northeast of Tokyo.

ATMI opens service center

ATMI has opened ATMI Taiwan, a subsidiary that will offer 24-hour technical support for the supplier's line of specialty materials and related equipment. The new subsidiary consolidates all of ATMI's Taiwan operations at one site. The supplier's products include subatmospheric gas storage and delivery systems, source CVD materials, and high-purity materials delivery systems. The facility is located near the Science-Based Industrial Park in Hsin Chu. Joining ATMI Taiwan as country manager is Ko-Ying Hu. He is the former manager of Asia sales and support for Schlumberger's line of inspection and measurement equipment.

Europe

Infineon joins EUV effort

Infineon Technologies of Munich has joined EUV LLC, an American consortium exploring the development of next-generation lithography. The chipmaker is the first European member of the consortium, which was founded by AMD, Intel, and Motorola in 1997. The organization is a private-public collaboration dedicated to joint research into developing leading-edge lithography alternatives to optical light sources. Extreme UV technology uses wavelengths 13 nm. Infineon is the leader of a European project called Medea to develop ion projection lithography (IPL), technology considered another alternative to optical light sources for geometries 70 nm. "Our collaborative efforts will be instrumental in meeting aggressive roadmap shrink targets over the next decade," says Harald Eggers, senior vice president and general manager of Infineon's memory products division.

Micronas to extend fab

Micronas is building a second fab module next to its existing fab in Freiburg, Germany. The $25 million extension will increase cleanroom space to allow Micronas to meet growing demand for the chipmaker's consumer, multimedia, and automotive semiconductors. Micronas is using a modular fab concept to increase capacity as needed. The additional space will increase cleanroom area by 41,980 sq ft. The chipmaker recently finished expanding module 1 at a cost of approximately $125 million. The new manufacturing area will enable Micronas to increase capacity by 15% overall. The company specializes in mixed-signal processes. Production in module 2 is scheduled to begin in March 2001.

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