IBM Marks $300 Million for Shanghai IC Packaging Plant as Part of $5B Investment
Fishkill, N.Y.-IBM has ticketed $300 million to build a chip-packaging foundry in Shanghai, China. The investment is part of IBM's plan to spend $5 billion worldwide on expansion. The Shanghai facility will produce electronic cards and chip carriers incorporating IBM's proprietary Surface Laminar Circuitry (SLC) and HyperBGA packaging technology. At presstime, details, including construction and operation dates for the Shanghai plant, were not available. Upstate N.Y. Wafer Fab The Shanghai news followed IBM's announcement of its largest capital investment ever by only two weeks. Earlier IBM said it plans to build a $2.5 billion advanced wafer fab in upstate New York. The East Fishkill plant will combine copper interconnects, silicon-on-insulator and low-k dielectric insulation on 300 mm wafers. IBM said it expects to be the first chip maker to mass produce semiconductors at linewidths below 0.10 micron, more than 1000x thinner than a human hair. Planned for Second Half The New York fab is planned for operation in the second half of next year, and will account for 1,000 new jobs when it reaches full production in 2003. In addition to the East Fishkill and Shanghai facilities, IBM is expanding wafer fab capacity at its existing Burlington, Vt., and Yasu, Japan, facilities. The company will also grow Altis Semiconductor, a joint venture between IBM and Infineon located in Corbeil-Essonnes, France. IBM said money would also go to expanding its IC packaging facilities worldwide, although further details were not released. According to the announcement, the East Fishkill 300 mm plant represents the single largest capital investment in New York State's history. [chips.ibm.com]
Kulicke & Soffa Pays $65M for Second Probe Card Company Willow Grove, Pa.-Kulicke & Soffa Industries Inc. has offered to acquire Probe Technology Corp., a maker of probe cards, for $65 million. K&S' acquisition of the privately held Santa Clara, Calif.-based company was announced slightly more than a month after the assembly equipment maker's offer to buy Cerprobe Corp., Gilbert, Ariz., for $225 million. Publicly traded Cerprobe makes probe cards, test contactors and other ATE interface products.
Ron Mende, current Probe Technology president, will continue in that post, according to the announcement. "We are entering probe/test," said Jim Spooner, K&S vice president, "because these are critical for our customers. The majority of probe companies are small players lacking the infrastructure to fund the R&D required to keep pace with customer demand." Spooner added that K&S "looked at more than 20 probe card companies" before offering to buy Cerprobe and Probe Technology. C. Scott Kulicke, K&S chairman and CEO, said "Probe Technologies' probe cards offer pad pitch capability that parallels our industry leading 8020-PPS ball bonder. We will work together to develop finer-pitch products that will meet or exceed the capabilities of our next-generation ball bonder platform." [kns.com] Flodstrom Promoted to Operations Director Forest Grove, Ore.-Merix Corp. has promoted Erik Flodstrom to director of its Wood Village, Ore. operations. The start-up of the 90,000-square-foot Wood Village facility, dedicated to high-technology inner layer PWB processing, is set for mid-year. Wood Village is expected to be at full capacity by mid-2003. Flodstrom holds a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from Oregon State University and a master's degree in management from the Oregon Graduate Institute. [merix.com] IBM Hikes Substrate Order from NTK Technical Ceramics
East Fishkill, N.Y.-IBM has signed a multi-year agreement with NTK Technical Ceramics, Aichi, Japan, for an increased supply of substrate material for IBM's ceramic substrate chip carriers. Together with internal capacity expansions previously announced by IBM, the agreement will more than triple IBM's supply of the packaging substrate by mid-year. The agreement calls for NTK, a division of NGK Spark Plug Co. Ltd., to manufacture ceramic chip carriers fabricated with alumina dielectric insulation and metallic conductors. These chip carriers are geared to high-performance applications in networking equipment and web servers that require high I/O density, uniform chip power distribution, improved cooling capability and high reliability. "NTK is ramping up ceramic packaging capacity for IBM immediately using existing facilities," said Seiji Haga, executive worldwide vice president of NTK/ NGK. "In addition, we began construction of a new manufacturing facility in August that is expected to begin production early in the second quarter." [chips.ibm][ngkntk.co.jp] Cookson Program Certifies Process Engineers Foxborough, Mass.-Cookson Performance Solutions is offering a certification program for SMT process engineers. Cookson says the program is the first of its kind in the electronics assembly industry and provides SMT process engineers with in-depth training and hands-on learning for the electronics manufacturing process. [cooksonsolutions.com] IPAC Posts Revenue Gain but Net Loss for Third Quarter San Jose-Integrated Packaging Assembly Corp. (OTC:IPAC) reported a net loss of $3.923 million, or ($0.07) per diluted share on revenues of $5.794 million for the third quarter ended Oct. 1, 2000. For the same quarter in 1999, IPAC reported a net loss of $2.437 million, or ($0.10) per diluted share, on revenues of $4.408 million. The subsidiary of Orient Semiconductor Electronics, Taiwan, posted a net loss of $7.943 million, or ($0.14) per diluted share, on revenues of $19.872 million for the nine months ended Oct. 1, 2000. [ipac.com] IPC Tackles BGA Assembly Issues with New Document Northbrook, Ill.-The IPC has released "IPC-7095, Design and Assembly Process Implementation for BGAs," which describes the design and assembly challenges for BGA and fine pitch BGA packaging technology. "This is the first time the industry has had a consensus document containing design and assembly issues associated with BGA implementation," according to Dieter Bergman, IPC's director of technology transfer. [ipc.org] August Technology Expands World Headquarters by Half Bloomington, Minn.-August Technology Corp., a supplier of inspection equipment for the semiconductor industry, has expanded its headquarters to 63,000 square feet, representing a gain of 50 percent over its previous size. In the past year, August Technology has nearly doubled its employee base and has increased its production capabilities. The company holds options on an additional 50,000 square feet for future growth. [augusttech.com] MYDATA Sets June Opening for New Rowley, Mass. Offices Peabody, Mass.-MYDATA Automation Inc., a supplier of surface mount assembly equipment, is expanding North American operations and moving its headquarters to Rowley, Mass., about 15 miles from its current location. The new corporate headquarters will house sales, service and training in 26,700 square feet. The company says it has increased sales by 50% for each of the past 10 years. [mydata.se] Reay Takes Helm at Linear Tech Milpitas, Calif.-Robert Reay has been promoted to general manager of Linear Technology's mixed signal product line, reporting to Clive Davies, Linear Technology's president. [linear-tech.com] Siliconware Buys Caesar Technology for $429M Taipei-The Siliconware Group, owner of Siliconware Precision Industries Ltd., has acquired competitor Caesar Technology, another Taiwan-based IC packaging foundry, for NTD 13.3 billion (about US$429 million). Caesar's operations will be merged into SPIL. According to information supplied to Chip Scale Review by Siliconware, Caesar has lost money for the past two years "with minimal returns from its BGA equipment investment and from competition by other subcontract assembly and test houses." For fiscal 1999, Caesar Technology reported a loss of NTD 25 billion (about US$379 million). [spil.co.tw] Dover Corp. Acquires OK International New York-Dover Corp. (NYSE: DOV) has acquired OK Inter-national, Menlo Park, Calif., whose products include soldering/ desoldering equipment, fume extraction systems and BGA rework machines. Terms were not disclosed. OK, which maintains manufacturing plants in Garden Grove, Calif., Menlo Park, and Yonkers, N.Y., posted sales revenue of about $100 million during CY2000. The company's brands include Metcal soldering and desoldering stations, Semtronics ESD instruments and Techcon dispensing systems. OK will continue to operate as an autonomous company. Other Dover subsidiaries involved in electronics include DEK, Everett Charles Technologies, Universal Instruments and Vitronics Soltec. [dovercorporation.com] FCT Licenses California Micro Devices Phoenix-Flip Chip Technologies (FCT), a joint venture of Kulicke & Soffa Industries and Delphi Delco Electronics, has licensed its flip-chip wafer-bumping technology to California Micro Devices (CMD), Milpitas, Calif. CMD currently licenses FCT's technology for ceramic substrates, will employ FCT's wafer bumping and redistribution processes to make silicon substrates, primarily for wireless communications. FCT, in turn, will gain access to CMD's proprietary wafer-thinning technology. [flipchip.com] RTI Spin-off Ziptronix Raises $6.5 Million Research Triangle Park, N.C.-Ziptronix Inc., the first commercial spin-off from Research Triangle Institute, has raised $6.5 million in its first round of venture capital financing. The company, which plans to license its wafer-scale semiconductor integration technology to large chip-making firms, employs a process that can integrate multiple chips, even chips made of different materials, into a single chip. [ziptronix.com] |
