INDUSTRY NEWS

SevenStar to contract manufacture Aviza systems for Chinese domestic market

A major U.S. supplier of thermal processing and deposition tools has teamed up with China's largest semiconductor equipment manufacturer. Aviza Technology has hired Beijing SevenStar Huachuang Electronics to produce submicron-capable systems tailored to the needs of Chinese chipmakers. "This will be subcontracting work," Aviza vice president of worldwide sales Rick O'Malley told MICRO at Semicon China. "SevenStar will build older-generation tools here, starting at the subsystems level and working from there. We'll walk up the value chain with them over time."

The Aviza executive said vertical thermal reactors will be the first tools that come out of the SevenStar arrangement. Although there is a thriving Chinese market for used and refurbished equipment, O'Malley believes that local customers also want the alternative of a "basic, qualified tool built from the ground up, at a competitive price."

Leal Chen, SevenStar's general manager of international marketing development, told MICRO that his company sees a good, cooperative relationship with Aviza. He said SevenStar expects to start with subsystems manufacturing and then move into whole-system builds of vertical diffusion tools, noting SevenStar's experience and domestic market leadership in manufacturing horizontal furnaces.

The Chinese company has 0.35-µm process capabilities and is close to achieving 0.25-µm competencies, with a goal of reaching 0.18 µm by 2006, according to SevenStar's microelectronic equipment branch vice–general manager, Jinlong Sheng. It can manufacture 75- to 200-mm platforms and has a "special R&D project" partially funded by the Chinese government for attaining 300-mm capability by 2006, he explained. Chen added that SevenStar is talking with other foreign companies about entering into additional partnerships in the future.