Here's the column you've been waiting for - the answers to my industry quiz from last issue! To ensure accuracy, I've passed these answers by Dr. Subash Khadpe, noted industry historian and editor and publisher of Semi-conductor Packaging Update. [skhadpe@semitech.com]
We'll announce the winners of our authentic cotton poplin Chip Scale Review polo shirts in the next issue. Now on with the show! 1. Fremont, Calif., once held the title of "The World Center of Wafer Dicing" by virtue of MicroAutomation. MA was, for a few years, the domestic leader in wafer-dicing saws. (This gets involved, so please pay attention.) Alas, MA foundered after General Signal suits from the East bought both AMI and MA and merged them to form Assembly Technology in Horsham, Pa. Ultimately, GS sold the remains of the combined companies to K&S (probably for spare parts). 2. Oops, Subash caught me on this one. Victor Batinovich did not found ASE, he co-founded ASAT, IPAC and Swire. ASE was co-founded by Ralph Duceour (now of AIT) and Dean Strausl. Look for Victor's new company, Advanced Interconnect Solutions, in the Silicon Valley area soon. [vbatinovich@icassembly.com] 3. The ceramics assembly plant outside Bangkok was started by Signetics (now Philips Semiconductors) of Sunnyvale, Calif. Gary Catlin, now at Tessera, put it together for the chip maker. Signetics continues, after nearly 36 years, as an assembler in Korea. [signetics.com] 4. Anyone older than 40 who's been allied with the chip assembly business for a few years will remember Indy Elec-tronics, founded by Jake Ratinoff. Jake recently celebrated his 80th birthday. Indy operated plants in Mexico, the Philippines and Scotland. The Manteca facility now houses Silicon Turnkey Solutions. [siliconturnkey.com] 5. We never knew how valuable molding compounds were until a fire and explosion took place at Sumitomo Chemical's Ehime plant on Shikoku Island on July 4, 1993. Epoxide Ortho-Cresol Novolac (ECN/OCN) is a vital ingredient in molding compounds. Ultimately, the ECN shortage turned out to be much ado about nothing. 6. Steve Anderson, one of our esteemed editorial advisors was the name we were after. He's now president of Silicon Bandwidth. [sanderson@siliconbandwidth.com] 7. The answer is Irvine Sensors, which is now located in Costa Mesa, Calif., instead of nearby Irvine. They've been offering a stacked memory scheme for decades. [irvinesensors.com] 8. Force Systems was co-founded by Bob Tancredi, a former K&S vice president (now with ESC International, Ivyland, Pa.) The company's Magnum die-bonder line never got much of a grip on the market. 9. Santa Clara, Calif., was the first home of what was then known as OIT (Olin Interconnect Technologies). OIT later moved to Manteca, Calif., and after a couple of new owners is now part of AIT. I would have accepted either Jeff Braden or Paul Hoffman. [aitsales.com] 10. Remember when the Philippines was the mecca for IC subcontractors? It wasn't that long ago. Several of the leading subcons of two decades ago are now gone, including Asionics Philippines and Semiconductor Devices Ltd. 11. Amkor was an acronym for American Korean, and was founded by James Kim, current chairman, in 1968. His father, Hyang-Soo Kim founded Anam Industrial Co. in 1956. [amkor.com] 12. I blew it on this one, too. According to Subash, and confirmed by ESEC, Karl Nicklaus was the sole founder. Branco Weiss was Nicklaus' partner and ESEC's chairman for many years. [esec.com] 13. The company is KRAS. The letters were the names of the four founders, none of which have been with the company for years. The family was headed by now-retired Larry Plummer, and included his son Lonny-now an Alphasem executive vice president, and Melissa Plummer. Melissa left the business to become a wife and mother. [plummer.l@alphasem.com] 14. Dr. Gerald "Skip" Fehr, a co-founder of IPAC and still the renamed company's (OSE USA) chief technical officer, is also a home builder in his native Iowa. [gfehr@ose-usa.com] 15. Octavio "Jun" Cruz was president for a time-among other management posts he held at Stanford Microsystems. We hear he's now involved in video arcade games in Manila. 16. We meant to ask, "Who sold the upgrade?" The answer is Deltron, who supplied the field upgrade for the K&S 478/479 wire bonders. 17. National Semiconductor thought the Bahamas would make a good outpost for IC assembly. National sent Bob Hilton, now with MTBSolutions, San Jose [bobh@mtbsolutions.com] to set it up. Bob later set retired National chief Charlie Sporck straight and Charlie folded the plant. 18. Texas Instruments held an airtight patent on "bottom gating," and wasn't afraid to enforce it. Revenue from companies who licensed TI's patents became a major source of income for the company. Those who failed to comply were sued. [ti.com] 19. Stanley Wang, chairman, president and CEO of Pantronix Corp., Fremont, Calif., founded one of the very few onshore IC assemblers that has been able to succeed against the tide of offshore assembly. He opened a plant in China this year, his second outpost in Asia. His first was Amertron in the Philippines, run by brother Richard. [pantronix.com] 20. I did it again! Amkor acquired two of its three plants in the Philippines from other companies. Amkor bought facilities that belonged to Advanced Micro Devices in 1989, and the former Automated Micro Electronics plant in 1993. In December 1994, Amkor bought land in Santa Rosa, Laguna Techno-park, and built its third Philippines-based plant.
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