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To: orkrious who wrote (3937)	1/28/2000 10:50:00 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5867

Singapore's Chartered to Boost Production Capacity of 8-in. Wafers in 2000 January 28, 2000 (TOKYO) -- Singapore's Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd. (CSM) announced earnings for its fourth quarter and fiscal year ended Dec. 31, 1999, together with its projected production capacities in and after 2000. The company reported annual net revenues of $694.3 million for 1999, an increase of 64 percent from the previous year. Its fourth-quarter net revenues were $216.2 million, more than double the net revenues of the same period the previous year. Its fourth-quarter 1999 earnings were $22.1 million, an improvement of almost $100 million compared with a loss of $77.2 million in the fourth quarter of 1998. Although the net loss for 1999 was $32.6 million, it was a big improvement compared with a loss of $190 million in 1998. The company attributed the good results to increased shipments, an improved rate of operation and rises of average selling prices. Chartered also announced its manufacturing capacity expansion plans in and after 2000. The company will increase the production capacity of its existing fabs from 700,000 wafers (8-in. wafer basis) to 970,000 wafers in 2000. During 2000, Chartered plans to break ground for the construction of a new 8-in. wafer fab. The new fab will have a production capacity of 60,000 8-in. wafers per month using 0.15-micron process technology. The company plans a total output of 1.4 million wafers in 2001. Chartered has no plans to construct 12-in. wafer fabs at present. "Large, 12-in. wafer fabs are fit for the production of DRAMs and microprocessors of one standard article in large quantity. Chartered, on the contrary, has been focusing on system-on-a-chip products and application-specific standard products (ASSP), for which 8-in. wafers are fit because they are flexible in a variety of market conditions," said Rob Baxter, Chartered's senior vice president of Business Operations (photo). Baxter also told Nikkei Electronics magazine about the company's plans for introducing new technologies, including copper wiring. As for copper-wiring technology, the company has been promoting two projects. One is a project based in Florida that is being promoted jointly with Lucent Technologies Inc. The project involves technology for 0.18-micron and 0.15-micron processes to be used with copper wiring. These processes will be applied to microchips with high integration and low power consumption. The other project is for HiPerMOS, a technology introduced by Motorola Inc. of the United States. It is a 0.15-micron process using low-induction insulative film called low-k. Copper wiring will be adopted for all layers. This process technology will be used for high-speed microchips that are slated to come on-stream prior to the chips processed using the Lucent-based technology. "Copper-wired microchips with HiPerMOS technology will be mass-produced as early as 2000," said Baxter. The optical proximity correction (OPC), an optimization technology for mask layouts, and the phase-shift technology, will be also incorporated in the HiPerMOS process. Baxter said the company does not intend to disclose its plans to introduce silicon-on-insulator (SOI) or SiGe transistor technology, both of which are being spread by IBM Corp. (Nikkei Electronics) nikkeibp.asiabiztech.com