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13 Sep 2004: | Bellwether SEMICON opens in Taipei SEMICON Taiwan 2004 opens during a “quiet period” in the industry. Following a positive first half, with audited results from Taiwan’s publicly declared companies submitted by the end of August, all eyes are now on the all-important fourth quarter. Equipment buyers have generally turned cautious, but new fab developments in Taiwan and China are driving the market. The industry is on the move, and SEMICON Taiwan is expected to indicate a positive fourth quarter.
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| Welcome to SEMICON Taiwan 2004! Welcome to SEMICON Taiwan 2004, the region’s premier exposition for semiconductor manufacturing technologies.
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| Taiwan foundry overview - 1 The year 1987 marked the start of foundry not just in Taiwan but globally, when Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) was founded as the world’s first “pure-play” foundry company.
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| Taiwan foundry overview - 2: Why is the foundry model successful? Foundry firms produce made-to-order chips for customers. The success of this business model stems from a key value: cost saving. Fabless IC design houses and IDMs can leverage the foundry firms’ capacity to produce chips, without themselves having to make costly investments in new fabs or new technology.
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| Taiwan foundry overview - 3: Capacity expansion Since the second half of 2003, the foundry industry has been rebounding from a two-year period of recession. Because foundry firms and IDMs have expanded capacity in a relatively restrained fashion, these companies have seen demand for wafer capacity outstripping their supply so far in 2004.
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| Taiwan foundry overview - 4: Moving towards integrated services In face of global competition, major Taiwan foundries are being prompted to provide value-added services, and these are then gradually transformed into forms of vertical integration. Rather than pure IC production, first-tier Taiwan foundries are providing integrated solutions either with in-house services or via alliances with downstream back-end suppliers or IP providers.
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| Taiwan foundry overview - 5: Competition from China With strong support from the Chinese government, a huge and fast-growing domestic market, relatively low production costs and rising foreign investments have allowed Chinese foundries to pose as strong competitors.
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| Taiwan foundry overview - 6: IDM outsourcing Although IDMs have traditionally treated foundries as back-up sources for capacity, many industry observers believe that IDMs are increasing their outsourcing, even at advanced process nodes, and adopting an “IDM-light” model as they face pressures of rising costs for next-generation facilities and technology developments.
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| iSuppli: Demystifying foundry capacity utilization; finding the truth can be difficult when 100 percent is not all there is Sometimes, the foundry industry seems to be full of contradictions.
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| Thinking two steps ahead: In Taiwan’s semiconductor industry, KLA-Tencor plays a leading role in yield optimization and metrology solutions. If there has been one key lesson of the recent downturn in the semiconductor industry, it's that yield counts. In tough times, new fab construction may be put on hold, and utilization may fall dramatically. At the same time, managers will be checking their process tools and seeing just how much further they can ratchet up yield. This is in a situation of rising costs, ever-greater on-chip complexity and unceasing calls for faster time-to-market.
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14 Sep 2004: | Semicon Taiwan 2004: The fundamentals are strong The 9th annual SEMICON Taiwan, 13-15 September, 2004, the show where chip-equipment makers, predominantly North American, show off their wares for Taiwan’s ever-growing semiconductor industry, is proving to be the largest ever. There are 1,400 booths this year, the largest number in the show’s nine-year history, with 613 companies exhibiting, compared with 587 in 2003. Last year, the show attracted 31,292 attendees. This year, Semicon Taiwan is also occupying Hall 3 of the Taipei World Trade Center (TWTC), as well as the main exhibition hall.
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| Taiwan equipment makers gear up for FPDs and III-Vs Taiwan’s equipment makers are gearing up to provide equipment for flat panel display (FPD) production, following their success in the III-V semiconductor sector, said Cheng Chen, a director of the Precision Machinery Industry Development Committee, Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA).
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| PSMC sees shipment growth for advanced-process photomasks The proportion of photomask shipments for 0.18-micron-and-below processes jumped over 60 percentage points in July for Photronics Semiconductor Mask Corporation (PSMC), amid escalating demand for advanced processes in wafer production.
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| TCSIA hosts III-V Pavilion at SEMICON Taiwan 2004 The Taiwan Compound Semiconductor Industrial Alliance (TCSIA), following the success of last year’s SEMICON Taiwan, is again hosting a special pavilion for compound semiconductors this year.
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| ITRI executive among speakers at SEMI NanoForum 2004 SEMI has announced the roster of speakers and companies that will make presentations at SEMI NanoForum 2004, the first global event to bring together SEMI members and representatives from leading nanotechnology developers, in order to explore applications and strategies for commercialization.
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| Services and solutions: Scientech Corporation has quietly built an extensive services and support organization for semiconductor manufacturers While maintaining something of a low profile within the industry, Scientech Corporation offers an interface between semiconductor manufacturers and services and support suppliers, or what the company calls its “principals.” Scientech backs up these offerings with a service infrastructure that is always available for clients, whether for spare parts or tools for metrology and yield optimization.
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| Foundry rising: Greater China’s foundry sector is on the move The China government has been the driving force behind the country’s fast-growing semiconductor industry. With its State Council Circular No. 18, issued June 24, 2000, the China government offered incentives that included tax rebates and cheap labor to lure domestic and foreign investors to set up fabs in China.
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| Micron on the advantages of stacking With respect to a given lithography node – whether it’s 0.11- or 0.13-micron – both stack and trench processes are implementing 8F² technology. However, the various suppliers do not use standardized nomenclature to describe their technology nodes, and the actual technology nodes used depend on the companies’ internal lithography roadmaps.
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15 Sep 2004: | TSMC to pilot run 193nm immersion lithography next month After almost three years of co-development with ASML, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC) is set to begin 12-inch wafer pilot production using 193nm immersion lithography next month, according to Burn Lin, company senior director of the micropatterning technology division.
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| Nextest displays new Magnum test system, announces Atmel purchase Nextest Systems, a first-time exhibitor at SEMICON Taiwan, is displaying its recently introduced Magnum test system at the show. The company has also taken the opportunity to announce the purchase of several Magnums by Atmel.
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| Amkor’s Taiwan acquisition targets flip-chip market Amkor Technology is hoping its acquisition of 60% of Unitive Semiconductor Taiwan (UST) will help the company to tap local demand for flip-chip packaging, according to Ingu Yin Chang, vice president of Amkor’s Greater China sales and business unit.
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| Spirox to align with UMC and LogicVision on enhanced yield solution Semiconductor and TFT LCD integrated solutions provider Spirox has claimed success in developing a BIST (Built-in Self Test) embedded integrated solution for integrated circuits by cooperating with United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) and LogicVision. Spirox stated the new solution should help significantly improve yields on advanced-process produced SoCs (system-on-chips).
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| TCSIA chief coordinator acknowledges Taiwan government’s support Taiwan’s precision machinery industry has established itself in the III-V semiconductor industry, thanks to the support of the Taiwan government, according to Morrison Liang, chief coordinator of the Taiwan Compound Semiconductor Industry Alliance (TCSIA).
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| Secondhand equipment floods China IC market Everyone believes that China is the sweet spot for chipmakers. The country’s demand for chips is expected to grow from US$2.16 billion in 2002 to US$7.72 billion in 2007, for a robust 29% CAGR, according to CCID (China Center of Information Industry Development). CCID claims the country’s demand is outstripping supply by 70% and by 2010, the gap will only drop to 56%.
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| China: The state of play in packaging & testing The IC packaging and testing sector is the strongest sub-sector of China’s IC industry, even though it creates the least “added-value” of any sector in the IC supply chain. This IC sub-sector is the strongest because equipment and labor play major roles in the industry, and China’s enormous cheap-labor market meets the sector’s need.
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| Micron on the advantages of stacking, part two Note: This is the second part of a report compiled from comments made by Mark Durcan, Micron’s CTO and VP of R&D, during an interview with DigiTimes in the second week of May and supplemented by information given by him during the company’s 2004 analyst conference in Hong Kong. The first part was featured yesterday.
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| Myers and Higashi talk about cyclicality and rising costs On the first day of Semicon Taiwan, DigiTimes had an opportunity to talk with Stanley Myers, president and chief executive officer of SEMI, and Terry Higashi, chairman of TEL (Tokyo Electron Ltd.) and chairman of the board of SEMI. Two key items on the interview agenda were the semiconductor industry's two most worrying problems: cyclicality and rising costs, both difficult to predict and mitigate.
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Company
showcase: | Advanced Wireless Semiconductor Company (AWSC) Advanced Wireless Semiconductor Company (AWSC) is a low cost GaAs HBT foundry service company. We utilize the most-cost effective mainstream GaAs manufacturing process technology, optimal process equipment and device layout and material structure for both wireless and optoelectronic communications. Our goal is to provide HBT Foundry Services at the best quality, lowest cost and with the fastest turnaround time.
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| Alcatel Vacuum Technology A300: cost-effective Dry Pump for 300mm etch
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| C SUN C Sun was founded in 1966, with a total capitalization of NT$ 628 million. The company has 450 employees located at three manufacturing sites in mainland China and Taiwan. C Sun is listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
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| Compound Semiconductor Device Laboratory (CSDLAB) CSDLAB (Compound Semiconductor Device Laboratory) is an academic research center located at the NCTU, Hsinchu, Taiwan. The Lab is equipped with a wide variety of tools for compound semiconductor device processing, including: Aligner, PR coater, E-beam lithography system, ICP, RIE, PECVD, Spray etcher, Sputterer, E-gun evaporator, Curve tracer, and more.
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| Cybernetix Cybernetix is an international specialist in Automatic Wafer Packaging & Inspection Equipment, as well as low-cost Automatic Test Equipment for Discrete Ics.
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| GPM A Professional, Enthusiastic and Creative Total-Solution Provider!
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| Ion Beam Services (IBS) A global service dedicated to customer support in the field of ion implantation
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| JEMI France JEMI France is a non-profit association, created in 1989, that represents 43 French companies, mainly SMEs (small-to-medium size enterprises). JEMI France members offer both front-end and back-end equipment, materials and technologies and undertake fab design, automation and facilities implementation. JEMI France has a wide range of available competencies in IC, microsystem and display manufacturing.
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| KIGIANT Technology KIGIANT, an ISO 9001-certified after-process manufacturer, provides an IC-trimming system, a forming system, a molding press, a mold die and tools. The company achieved a 70% market share last year in molding presses.
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| MICROHANDLING MICROHANDLING is a leading German manufacturer of Test Handlers and Manipulators used in final test.
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| Nikon Step and Repeat Scanning System NSR-S308F
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| Probest When probing requires a very fine pitch, multi-die with light-through test, and high-current and very high electrical specifications
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| Sopra Starting from the manufacturing of Spectroscopic Ellipsometers for R&D in 1983, SOPRA has evolved towards in-line non-destructive materials control, producing some of the world’s most accurate instruments for thin-film metrology.
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| Taiwan Compound Semiconductor Industrial Alliance (TCSIA) TCSIA is a non-profit alliance of groups and individuals from the industry, government agencies, and academic and research institutes. TCSIA aims to encourage domestic and overseas resources to integrate, promote technology exchanges and cooperate. The organization also aims to upgrade the technology level of domestic compound semiconductor companies, making Taiwan a key production and innovation center in the global compound semiconductor industry.
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| Taiwan Semicon-Tech Service Company (TSSC) TSSC (Taiwan Semicon-Tech Service Company) provides a total solution service for semiconductor, LCD and LED manufacturing.
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| Unaxis The Unaxis CLUSTERLINE® tools set no limit for highly sophisticated process applications, thanks to their flexibility and performance. The CLUSTERLINE® 200 and CLUSTER-LINE® 300 are single wafer tools for high volume production of:
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| WIN Semiconductors WIN Semiconductors Corp was founded in October 1999 as a pure-play 6-inch GaAs foundry. The company has established an advanced GaAs-wafer fab in recognition of the growing demand for low-cost manufacturing of high-speed and high-quality GaAs MMICs (monolithic microwave ICs) and RFICs (radio-frequency ICs). WIN provides dedicated foundry services to design houses as well as IDM partners. WIN supplies HBT and pHEMT MMIC fabrication services to IC manufacturers worldwide, using state-of-the-art GaAs-process technology.
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