Circuits Assembly Online Magazine - Features

SAN FRANCISCO – Makers of semiconductor production equipment and materials can look forward to the market for their wares growing 19% sequentially this year and 10% next year to reach $40 billion, the highest level since 2000.

The forecast was disclosed this week at the SemiCon West trade show by Strategic Marketing Associates. According to SMA president George Burns, the double-digit growth for this year and next is being fueled by rising levels of new wafer fab construction that began in 2004 and is expected to crest in 2007. “We see the industry bringing 35 new fabs online by end of 2007 with a total equivalent capacity, when fully ramped, of more than 2 million 200mm diameter wafers per month. Representing more than 15 acres of silicon, this monthly output is roughly equal to 18% of industry's theoretical full capacity today.”

LONDON -- The National Physical Laboratory has launched a six-month study into the use of XRF techniques.

NPL said in a press release that 10 companies have already signed on to participate in the project, which will assess XRF as a means for determining the presence and amount of various hazardous substances.

The protocol would include assessing a range of sample configurations incorporating known issues with RoHS-prohibited contaminants. Samples would be chemically analyzed prior to round-robin testing. After testing, the actual samples used will be chemically analyzed again to eliminate batch variance problems. The final report would include a comparison of XRF techniques and test sites.

The project is scheduled to launch this month July and last six months. The work will be presented to the NPL Soldering Science & Technology Club and disseminated in an NPL Report.

For more information contact Dr. Chris Hunt at chris.hunt@npl.co.uk .

SAN FRANCISCO – A group of 34 U.S. attorneys general on Friday filed suit in California District Court against seven computer memory chip manufacturers alleging the firms violated antitrust laws, and harmed consumers and governmental agencies, by conspiring to fix prices they charged for widely used DRAM chips.

The defendants include Infineon Technologies, Hynix Semiconductor, Micron Technology, Mosel Vitelic, Nanya Technology, Elpida Memory and NEC Electronics America. Also named as defendants were certain subsidiaries that sold and distributed DRAM chips in the U.S.

Infineon, Hynix, Micron, along with Samsung, control roughly 70% of the U.S. market.

SAN JOSE – A Lockheed Martin engineer has devised a matrix for gold content and is making the calculator available at no cost. The nonproprietary Excel spreadsheet allows users to plug in solder and gold thickness, plus the pad and component attach geometry, and then calculates the percent-gold, making it simple to determine whether the fillet might encounter gold-embrittlement problems.

Users could also create their own gold thresholds and color schemes.

Melville, NY -- The North American Components (NAC) unit of Arrow Electronics and China Great Wall Computer Group have signed a partnership agreement involving manufacturing, logistics and supply of various electronic components.

According to the press release, Arrow's OEM clients can have their products assembled at Great Wall Group's facility in Shenzhen, bringing the finished products closer to the Asian market.

One of the goals of the partnership is to create a manufacturing facility in China that matches production facilities in North America. "Arrow can now ensure that customers who want to manufacturer their products overseas will have their established manufacturing practices replicated exactly, which eliminates the need to conduct inspections at multiple manufacturing sites," said Steve Ramsland, VP and general manager of Arrow OEM computing solutions, in a statement. "Our global customers now have a cost-effective way to penetrate the Asian market while maintaining the same quality standards they are accustomed to in North America."

As well as shifting manufacturing to China, the partnership also allows Arrow to shift a customer’s supply chain to China without the need to revamp a product’s BOM. "We can now shift the customer's component buy to China," said Jennifer Johnson, director of technical services at NAC. "When we source in North America, we had to transport parts from Asia. Now we're sourcing in the region where the manufacturing will take place."

SAN FRANCISCO -- Manufacturers of semiconductor equipment expect 2006 to be the second largest year ever for sales of new semiconductor equipment, according to a mid-year forecast by the SEMI Capital Equipment Consensus announced during SEMICON West.

Following an 11.3% decline in 2005, the equipment market will grow 18% to $38.8 billion in 2006. Survey respondents – based on interviews conducted in May and June with major equipment companies – see the market remaining flat in 2007 but resuming double-digit growth to reach $44.1 billion in 2008.