The More Things Change...

To paraphrase Ecclesiastes, "To everything there is a season." And, it seems, we have entered the season for mergers, acquisitions and a general consolidation in the semiconductor industry by survivors of the worst down cycle in at least two decades. A few examples? Certainly.

First, let's consider the chip packaging industry. Orient Semiconductor Electronics, Taiwan, recently acquired IPAC in San Jose. About a month earlier, Hyundai Electronics America sold its ChipPAC spinout to a group of private investors. And last year the Batam, Indonesia-based chip assembler, formerly known as Astra Microtronics Technology, was acquired and is now Advanced Microtronics Technology.

There's been even more momentum at the device makers. Here's a prime example: Royal Philips Electronics NV, the rather large Dutch group, is spending more than $1 billion to acquire VLSI Technology of Milpitas, a legendary name in the semiconductor industry. Of course, this will not be Philips' first incursion into Silicon Valley. You may recall a company named Signetics in Sunnyvale, which Philips acquired about two decades ago.

Activity on the assembly equipment front has been almost sedate, by comparison. We can only recall one major example—at least where traditional equipment makers are concerned—and that's Alphasem AG, which recently became part of Universal Instruments.

You've probably read that Watkins-Johnson's CVD equipment group, Scotts Valley, Calif., has been acquired by the Silicon Valley Group. The list goes on and certainly could occupy several more pages.

What does all this consolidation mean? Two things. First, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Ultimately it will mean a stronger semiconductor industry that will be able to adjust better to the wrenching, but almost predictable industry downturns. In many ways, large corporations mirror the human condition. Companies, like people, are born, they grow and produce offspring and they pass from the scene. The only dramatic difference is that companies often return as completely new entities with the same name.



Remember we mentioned Signetics earlier? Signetics still exists, but bears no resemblance to the original chip maker founded on Arques Avenue in Sunnyvale. The new Signetics is a Korean-owned venture that acquired Signetics Korea. How about Dynetics, the one-time IC assembly house in the Philippines? A company with the Dynetics name lives on, but with no roots as far as we can tell, to the Dynetics of nearly two decades ago.

Now, on with the show. We're looking at two principal topics in this issue: first, wafer-level CSPs. It looks like wafer-level processing has turned the corner from being largely experimental to real-world practicality. There are few chip makers not involved in CSPs, and most have several wafer-level plans nearing reality.

Cordially,
Ron Iscoff
Editor