INDUSTRY NEWS

IBM seeks 300-mm leg up

IBM hopes to get a leg up on 300-mm wafer processing with a $700-million IC research plant now under construction in East Fishkill, NY. Designed to help the company develop advanced chip-production techniques, the plant will also enable Big Blue to explore the use of copper layers and x-ray lithography. Once perfected in the lablike setting, the three techniques will be transferred to IBM's fab in Burlington, VT. Scheduled to be in full operation in late 1999, the site will employ 400 workers. Governor George Pataki called the project the largest single industrial investment in the state's history.

Vendor pulls crystal bid

Ferrofluidics has withdrawn from the bidding to supply MEMC Electronic Materials with a 300-mm crystal puller system. Salvatore Vinciguerra, president and CEO of the Nashua, NH—based supplier, says his company could not "meet the requirements of the MEMC competition and pursue our other priorities as well." The withdrawal will enable the company to concentrate on its plan to establish a 300-mm crystal puller development center and continue development of its core ferrofluidic technology. MEMC will remain a customer for the vendor's 200-mm crystal pullers, Vinciguerra notes. The decision to withdraw was mutual and without rancor, he added. Ferrofluidics has a puller that can be used to anchor its 300-mm development center, which will enable the company to feature demonstration "grows" of 300-mm crystals. The vendor shipped its first 300-mm puller in 1997. Had the company gone forward in its bid for the MEMC contract, it would have had to delay the development project and take out an additional $5-million line of credit, Vinciguerra says.

Applied installs RTP tool

Applied Materials has installed a rapid thermal processing system at the Selete site in Kanagawa, Japan. The Japanese 300-mm research consortium will evaluate the tool as part of its mission to provide its 10 corporate members with information to guide them in making technological and purchasing decisions during the transition to the larger wafer size. The system is based on Applied's 200-mm RTP XE Centura platform. The vendor asserts that RTP is particularly suitable for 300-mm, sub-0.25-µm processes and offers advantages over batch-type furnaces for applications such as implant anneal and metal silicide formation. Features include advanced wafer handling and temperature control, as well as control for processing chips with linewidths down to 0.18 µm.

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