News
The SIA forecast that revised semiconductor growth from 19% and 6% growth in 2004 and 2005, respectively, to 29% and 4%, should negatively impact equipment sales for 2004, according to the report, "The Global Market for Equipment and Materials for IC Manufacturing," recently published by The Information Network (New Tripoli, PA), a market research company.
"Negative sentiment from analysts and forecasts of a relatively flat 2005 from the SIA are pointing to eventual pushouts and cancellations of equipment," said Dr. Robert Castellano, president of The Information Network. "Semiconductor manufacturers are already overly cautious from the last severe downturn, and fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD factor) about growth in late 2004 beyond will affect their decisions to go ahead and purchase more tools they may not need by the time they are delivered."
According to the company, the industry is 9 months into the current equipment upswing, while semiconductor sales have been in an up cycle since January 2002—a period of 28 months. Historically semiconductor and equipment inflections occurred within 3 months of each other.
However, the company believes the industry went through a paradigm shift during the past recession, moving to more aggressive die shrinks and to 300 mm processing to increase production. To avoid massive inventory buildup, semis will not be investing frivolously in equipment, but will instead be closely monitoring real demand. If demand drops, real or perceived, the equipment market boom will be over before it really got a foothold.
"As capacity utilization is the percentage of wafer starts (and we know they've been increasing for 28 months) to capacity, and capacity is showing no growth, it results in increasing capacity utilization," said Castellano. "But why didn't capacity grow when revenues (billings) increased dramatically for the past two quarters? Is capacity utilization really increasing to stratospheric levels as IC manufacturers would lead us to believe at a time they are raising prices?"
Company forecasts from November 2003 called for the front-end equipment market to grow 21% in 2004 and 11.4% in 2005 before dropping 7.9% in 2006, based partly on SIA's forecasts of 19% and 6% growth for 2004 and 2005 and on IC fab capacity.
Copyright 2004, UP Media Group. All rights reserved.
Anticipating engineers' concerns with confusion on the production lines about mixing lead and lead-free materials, Kester (Des Plaines, IL) has announced a change in its lead-free packaging in the solder paste product line. The company is also introducing a new lead-free triangular-shaped bar.
Since April, Kester's lead-free solder paste has been packaged in green jars and cartridges. The traditional solder paste will continue to be packaged in white jars and transparent gray cartridges. The company believes this will make it easier for customers to distinguish between lead and lead-free alloy pastes on their production lines and will also avoid costly confusion, making the transition to lead-free easier.
To further reduce confusion in the customer's production lines, Kester has introduced the industry's first easily distinguishable lead-free triangular solder bar. The company hopes the triangular shaped lead-free bar will keep customers from making costly mistakes in their solder pots.
The change in lead-free packaging will soon be seen globally, but currently the changes will be seen from shipments out of the Des Plaines facility only.
Copyright 2004, UP Media Group. All rights reserved.
Deja View Inc. (Brick, NJ), the first company to introduce a wearable digital mini-camcorder with "after-the-fact" recording technology for the consumer market, announced it has contracted with Advent Electronics Pte Ltd. (Singapore) to build its products.
Terms of the strategic partnership were not disclosed, but according to Jeff Sobel, executive vice president of Deja View, Advent "is committed to deliver the products in the quantities we specified to meet our scheduled June launch."
The Model 100 is the first wearable digital camcorder. The tiny camera can be clipped to a pair of eyeglasses or on the bill of a hat. The recording device and digital storage are housed in a PDA-sized unit worn on a belt, waistband or fanny pack. The camera, which will sell for under $400, records 30 seconds of action that occurred before the user presses the record button.
"It was clear to us from the start that Deja View has great ideas, and we are proud to be selected as its manufacturing partner," said S.S. Lim, Advent's chief executive officer. "Deja View's first product, the Model 100, is truly innovative
Deja View was founded in 2002 to design, manufacture and market a complete line of wearable camera products based on its own patent-pending video camcorder technology.
Advent Electronics Pte Ltd was founded in June 1999 as a privately owned joint venture company with Lion Asiapac Ltd, a publicly listed company in Singapore and subsidiary of the Lion Group, a multi-billion dollar conglomerate in Malaysia. Its business is franchise distribution of electronic components in the South Asia Pacific region (including India), and providing value-added outsourcing services to U.S. and European customers. Such original equipment manufacturer (OEM) services include design, prototyping, PCB/PCBA, ISO9001/2 test capabilities and final product manufacturing.
Copyright 2004, UP Media Group. All rights reserved.
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