Hi Joe, I was wondering if the following press release which I found was issued back in Nov. would mean any additional sources of revenue in the near term? I thought they were selling off Diamond Tech One & Plasmatron subsidiaries, but apparently they decided against it. I also wonder about the potential market for gold bumping? Barb
Monday November 4 7:14 AM EDT
SIDT Subsidiary, Diamond Tech One, Agrees to Strategic
Alliance with Multichip Assembly, Inc.
Diamond Tech One and Multichip Join Forces for Production Wafer Gold
Bumping and TAB Assembly Services
AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 4, 1996--Diamond Tech One, Inc. (DTO), a subsidiary of SI Diamond Technology Inc , has signed a strategic alliance agreement with Multichip Assembly, Inc. (San Jose, CA) to collaborate on production services for wafer gold bumping and TAB assembly.
Under the terms of the agreement, Multichip will use DTO for the majority of its gold bumping needs for TAB assembly, as well as directing new gold bumping opportunities to DTO, increasing DTO's world-wide exposure in the marketplace. The parties will also explore the possibility of establishing a major gold bumping production facility capable of supporting the industry's demands into the 21st century.
Similarly, DTO will utilize Multichip's production TAB assembly capacity, on and off-shore, for high-volume TAB business. DTO will also direct any new TAB assembly production opportunities to Multichip.
"Adding Multichip's customer base to ours is a fantastic expansion of our business opportunities," emphasized Dr. Zvi Yaniv, president and COO of SIDT. "DTO customers also now have a clear path from developmental TAB capacity at DTO to reliable, high volume TAB assembly capacity at Multichip."
"With the tremendous growth in demand for TAB assembly services, driven particularly by the flat panel display industry, it is very important to have consistently high quality gold bumps every time,"
said Donald MacIntyre, CEO of Multichip. "DTO leads the industry in gold bumping quality, and we are very excited about the short-term and long-term business opportunities."
Wafer bumping refers to the process of forming microscopic bumps on the inter-connection points of a chip. For TAB assembly in flat panel displays, and other similar assembly methods in numerous small-scale consumer electronic products, having a high quality gold bumps enhances the reliability of the assembly and integrity of the electronic signals.
"This alliance with Multichip catapults DTO ahead of its competitors," said Ken Mizuki, sales and marketing manager at DTO. "Today, there are only a handful of dedicated gold bumping suppliers in the U.S...Adding Multichip's volume TAB assembly capacity to our suite of services instantly sets DTO above its competitors."
Multichip Assembly was founded in 1991 in conjunction with Multichip Technology, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cypress Semiconductor. Today, Multichip Assembly is a privately held, stand-alone corporation dedicated to the design and production of advanced semiconductor
packaging solutions utilizing technologies such as TAB, COB, BGA and Flip Chip. Multichip Assembly's corporate headquarters and production facilities are located in San Jose, CA.
Austin-based SI Diamond Technology is engaged in the development and commercialization of specialized products, including diamond field emission products. DTO provides wafer fabrication and assembly services for the microelectronics and semiconductor industries. SIDT's Plasmatron subsidiary provides sputtering and coating systems. SIDT common stock trades in the NASDAQ under the symbol SIDT and on the Pacific and Boston exchanges under the symbol SDI. |
