INDUSTRY NEWS

EXPANSIONS AND ACQUISITIONS

Players form global alliances

In response to customer demands for one-stop ultrapure materials shopping, four of the biggest suppliers of high-purity gases and chemicals and related systems and services to the semiconductor industry have joined forces in two separate global alliances. Air Liquide Electronics and Arch Chemicals have combined their resources in a marketing partnership, while Merck KGaA Electronic Chemicals and Praxair have brought together their respective sales, product lines, and organizational structures.

Air Liquide and Arch say the alliance will allow each company to continue providing customers with the products and services at which the gas and chemical companies excel, with collaboration in the promotion of complementary services that offer comprehensive solutions for the user. On-site generation, purification, and distribution of chemicals as well as gas and chemical management services are Air Liquide's strengths, while Arch provides current and next-generation process chemicals in addition to on-site chemical management services. The companies believe the alliance will simplify the customer's business while offering cost benefits.

Merck and Praxair claim their partnership will result in the creation of the industry's broadest product line, featuring Praxair's catalog of atmospheric and process gases and Merck's extensive wet chemicals and dopants offerings. In addition to providing their customers operational cost savings through shared local warehousing, logistics, and site gas and chemicals services, the partners say customers should also see significant cost savings through shared project management and material procurement in the installation of turnkey gas and chemical dispense systems.

According to industry sources, sales of specialized gases and chemicals to the worldwide microelectronics industry were about $2.7 billion in 1998.

Asyst wants PST

Asyst Technologies, the manufacturer of SMIF isolation systems, has signed a letter of intent to acquire Progressive System Technologies (PST). Based in Austin, TX, PST makes substrate management systems for SMIF-integrated wafer logistics and reticle automation. Asyst says its expertise in automation and wafer isolation meshes well with PST's automated reticle and wafer management capabilities. Valued at approximately $10 million, the transaction would be accounted for as a pooling of interests. Quoting forecast statistics, Asyst says the market for automated wafer management systems is expected to exceed $280 million in 2001. Among the trends driving the market growth are the need for increased automation, SMIF upgrades, and automation for 300-mm wafer processing, Asyst asserts.

Silane plant coming

Advanced Silicon Materials says a plant it is building in Montana will enable the supplier to approximately double its bulk-loading capacity for the precursor gas silane. Budgeted at an estimated $7.5 million, the plant is scheduled to begin operating in the first quarter of 2000. The facility will be located at the site of Advanced's polysilicon plant, which opened in May 1998 in Butte. The existing plant has been manufacturing high-purity polysilicon and silane. The company already operates a silane-loading facility at its headquarters in Moses Lake, WA. The Butte facility has an annual production capacity of 5100 metric tons of silane and 3900 tn of polysilicon. The new bulk-loading plant will have an annual capacity of 200 tn. The demand for silane was beginning to outstrip the company's capabilities, Advanced says.

Dow center targets films

Dow Corning will use a recently opened technical service center to develop resins with low dielectric constants, the company says. Dow opened the service center at a company site in Auburn, MI. Products sold to the interlayer dielectrics (ILD) market include FOx flowable oxides. Equipment installed for ILD manufacturing includes three large fume hoods for synthesizing resins, two gel-permeation chromatography systems for determining molecular weight, and a spin-coating tool for forming thin films of 0.5 to 2 µm.

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