Amkor Technology, STATS Wrangle Over Package Patent Claims Chandler, Ariz.-Singapore-based IC packaging foundry ST Assembly Test Services (STATS) has denied that its Quad Leadless Package infringes on Amkor Technology's MicroLeadFrame package technology, covered under Amkor's U.S. patent No. 6,143,981. Amkor filed suit in February against STATS in the Federal District Court, Eastern District, in Sherman, Texas, alleging that STATS infringed "one or more of the 19 separate claims in the '981 patent.
In a news release announcing the litigation, Amkor President John Boruch is quoted as saying, "The company has invested heavily in research and development for semiconductor packaging technology and has placed an emphasis on expanding its intellectual property portfolio in recent years. "Amkor is acting to protect the interests of its employees, shareholders and the investment community by bringing the federal lawsuits against STATS," said Boruch. "We will protect our property." Aside from the notorious litigation brought by Texas Instruments over "bottom gating" more than a decade ago, litigation over package design has been relatively rare. About a year ago, Tessera of San Jose brought suit against Sharp and Texas Instruments. Tessera claims that both companies, Tessera licensees at the time, infringed the µBGA package patent. That suit is currently working its way through the courts and the International Trade Commission. Kulicke & Soffa Industries Promotes Camarda and Olachea
Willow Grove, Pa.-Kulicke & Soffa Industries has named Joel Camarda president of its substrate division (formerly X-Lam) in Cupertino, Calif., and promoted Gil Olachea to president of its flip-chip division (formerly Flip Chip Technologies), Phoenix, Ariz. Olachea was formerly vice president for strategic business and product marketing at Flip Chip Technologies and Camarda was FCT president. Camarda was earlier with Cypress Semiconductor and IPAC, while Olachea was an executive at ABPAC Inc. and Amkor Technologies Inc. [kns.com] Stanford Presents Weekly WLP Seminar Series Palo Alto, Calif.-Stanford University's School of Engineering (U.S.-Japan Technology Management Center) kicks off its Spring 2001 seminars on April 5 with weekly presentations discussing "The Impact of Wafer-Level Technologies on Advanced IC Design." The free seminars meet at 4:15 p.m. in Skilling Auditorium for nine consecutive Thursdays. Dr. Tom Di Stefano of Decision Track, a pioneer in wafer-level packaging, is scheduled to present a talk at the first meeting. [fuji.stanford.edu/seminars/spring01] CS2 Looks for Investor/Partner by Mid-June Brussels-Packaging foundry CS2, operating under the equivalent of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, says it hopes to find a partner/ investor by June 20, the date it must present a creditor repayment plan to the Commercial Court of Brussels. As of November 30, 2000, the board said the company sustained a loss of some 18 million Euro (about U.S. $16.75 million) over the prior 11 months. Yves De Poorter, who replaced founder Steve Lerner as president and CEO, said in a news release that he remains optimistic about the company's future. "New customers and products are being qualified and we hope these will increase our orders during the year." [cs2.be] Cypress Semi Buys International Microcircuits San Jose, Calif.-Cypress Semiconductor has purchased International Microcircuits Inc., also in San Jose. IMI's products include programmable clocks, EMI suppression devices and ASICs. [cypress.com] MCT Wins $2.2M 'Tapestry' System Orders Micro Component Technology Inc., St. Paul, Minn., says it has received two orders for its Tapestry test handling systems valued at a total of $2.1 million. The systems are scheduled to ship during Q1 and Q2. [mct.com] National Semiconductor Licenses Flex-on-Cap National Semiconductor, Santa Clara, Calif., has licensed wafer- bumping technology from Flip Chip Technologies, Phoenix, Ariz., a joint venture of Kulicke & Soffa Industries and Delphi Delco Electronics Systems.
Tecnomatix Receives $400,000 Agilent Order Tecnomatix Technologies Ltd., Herzeliya, Israel, has received a $400,000 follow-on order from Agilent Technologies, Palo Alto, Calif., for the Israeli company's Techomatix-Unicam eMPower software. The software will be employed in Agilent's PC board assembly. Ultratech Stepper Believes in Megic Ultratech Stepper has won a follow-on order for several Spectrum wafer steppers from Megic Corp., Taiwan. Megic will use the steppers for flip-chip bumping at the company's Hsinchu plant. [ultratech.com] GEL-PAK Division Moves to New Facility San Diego, Calif.-GEL-PAK's Quik-Pak Division has moved into a new manufacturing facility, double the size of its former location, according to the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based parent company. The expansion, which incorporates improvements in cleanroom and environmental controls, will also enable GEL-PAK to employ some of the San Diego space for its packaging products manufacturing. [gelpak.com] Look for Our Salary Survey in the Mail Chip Scale Review will publish the results of its first salary survey of assembly and packaging engineers in our July issue. Between April and May, we'll mail our survey questionnaire to several thousand readers in the U.S. If you receive the survey, please complete it and mail it back to us. We've already paid the postage. You may, if you wish, indicate your name and address or you may remain anonymous. That's up to you, and thanks for participating. [ChipScaleReview.com] Agilent Technologies Acquires MVT Ltd. Palo Alto, Calif.-Agilent Technologies says its subsidiary, Agilent Technologies Ireland Ltd., plans to acquire MVT Ltd., a privately owned supplier of automated optical inspection systems. Financial terms were not disclosed. Headquartered in Dublin, MVT has more than 140 employees. After the acquisition, MVT will become an operation within the Imaging Division of Agilent's Manufacturing Test Business Unit. [agilent.com] AMD Breaks Ground for Singapore Test Facility Singapore-AMD recently broke ground for a new U.S. $45 million IC test and design center here. AMD's current Singapore facilities operate as a design and test center for the packaging and testing of the company's Athlon and Duron CPUs. The new facility is scheduled to go online by the second half of next year. When completed, the seven-story Singapore test plant and design center will occupy 345,000 square feet, including a 260,000 square foot production facility. The plant will operate as a test center for microprocessors, engineering R&D and IC design. [amd.com] IMAPS Forms Russian Chapter The International Microelectronics and Packaging Society (IMAPS) has formed a chapter in Russia. [chat.ru/~imaps] Nordson and Speedline Settle Mass Flow Patent Infringement Litigation Carlsbad, Calif.-Nordson Corp. of Westlake, Ohio, and Speedline Technologies of Foxborough, Mass., have agreed to settle a patent infringement suit over mass flow calibration technology developed here by Nordson subsidiary Asymtek. The technology is employed in fluid dispensing machines used in surface mount assembly and chip packaging applications. Terms of the settlement were not announced. [asymtek.com] AMD Shares the Wealth ($23.6 Million) Sunnyvale, Calif.-Advanced Microdevices distributed $23.6 million in profit sharing to its U.S. employees for Q4 of 2000. The bonus represented the equivalent of three weeks' pay-half in cash and half in deferred compensation. AMD's total profit sharing payout for 2000 amounted to more than $103 million, or nearly 12 weeks' pay, an AMD record. [amd.com] SRC Awards $29 Million for Research Research Triangle Park, N.C.-The Semiconductor Research Corp. (SRC), an industry consortium, awarded $29.3 million in university research contracts last year. New or additional funding was given to more than 200 projects at 68 universities. The largest, worth $2.5 million, was awarded to Dr. John R. Hauser of North Carolina State University for research on front-end manufacturing processes. Dr. Hauser's work addresses the materials and processes needed to fabricate millions of high-qualilty resistors while scaling to the sub-100 nanometer feature size. Dr. Shyam Murarka, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, received $1.43 million to develop high-performance interconnect systems for submicron ICs. [src.org] IPC Releases New Technology Roadmap Northbrook, Ill.-The IPC has released its 2000/2001 National Technology Roadmap for Electronic Interconnections. The IPC's roadmap "dovetails" with the two other major electronics roadmaps in the U.S., the NEMI technology roadmap for OEMs and the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRI). [ipc.org]
Unitive Inc. Completes $44 Million Funding; Opens New Wafer-Bumping Facility in Taiwan Research Triangle Park, N.C.-Unitive Inc., a provider of wafer-bumping services, has secured $44 million in funding, including $30 million in equity funding led by Onex Corp. Other investors participating in the financing include Celestica Inc., Conexant Systems Inc., Fairchild Semiconductor and Flextronics International Ltd. In addition to the equity funding, the company also secured $14 million in debt financing to buy capital equipment. Unitive plans to use part of the money to build a facility in the western U.S. that will be capable of bumping up to 400,000 wafers/year. "The new facility will support the expected increase in demand for advanced interconnect solutions and will complement our North Carolina and Taiwanese operations," reported Robert Lanzone, vice president of sales and marketing. Unitive also announced the opening of a new bumping facility in the Hsin Chu Industrial Park, Taiwan. Known as Unitive Semiconductor Taiwan Corp. (UST), the facility is currently ramping volume production for its first customers. UST is a joint venture established by Unitive and unnamed Taiwanese partners. The facility currently offers a capacity of 125,000 solder-bumped wafers and 109,000 gold-bumped wafers annually. Scheduled capacity expansion this year will add 125,000 solder-bumped-wafers for a total yearly capacity of 358,000. When needed, according to Unitive, the facility will be able to produce a total of 720,000 wafers/year. [unitive.com] ASE Test and 1st Silicon Partner in Malaysia to Provide Wafer Fab and Test Services Sarawak, Malaysia-1st Silicon (Malaysia) and ASE Electronics Malaysia, a wholly owned unit of ASE Test Ltd., have formed a partnership to provide wafer fab and test services to the global market. The agreement calls for ASE Test to provide onsite wafer probe at 1st Silicon's Kuching, Sarawak facility. [aseglobal.com] |
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