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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (44674)	3/28/2001 5:24:19 PM
From: mitch-c	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

The officers of that company must feel a lot like the soldiers in the Light Brigade (as in, The Charge Of The........). Geez. Talk about a difficult job: having your IPO on a day when every company in your sector is setting 52W lows. "Half a mil, half a mil, half a mil onward - Into the Market of Death rode the $6 Billion ..." <g> - Mitch

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (44674)	3/28/2001 6:20:58 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 70976

Malaysian wafer foundry begins commercial production By Will Wade EE Times (03/28/01, 5:12 p.m. EST) SAN MATEO, Calif. — Malaysian foundry startup Siltera Sdn. Bhd. has just produced its first revenue-producing wafers, and expects to post sales exceeding $1 million this quarter. With an eye on a quick ramp to volume production, the company is predicting a more than tenfold increase in sales next quarter. "We are moving up very rapidly," said Steve Della Rocchetta, executive vice president of marketing and sales for the foundry. "We are close to running at 100 percent with our installed tools. We're doing very well." The foundry got off to an inauspicious start in 1997, just as the chip market was headed into a steep downturn. Siltera broke ground in 1999 for its fab in Kulim, Malaysia, and began installing tools there last September. Della Rocchetta said the first prototype wafers came off the tool set on Dec. 22, and that the first commercial wafers were completed late last month. Siltera is currently producing standard eight-inch wafers at the 0.25-micron technology node. It is currently turning out some 2,500 wafers per week, and that number should soon increase to 4,500 per week, Della Rocchetta said. The total capacity for the facility is 7,000 wafers per week. The first test wafers saw yields of about 80 percent for standard logic parts and 85 percent for SRAM components. Della Rocchetta said the company has begun accepting customer orders and already has a backlog of some $80 million. The major foundries were running at more than 100 percent of capacity last year, but those numbers have declined this year as demand for new semiconductor parts has slipped. "We are bucking the trend of the foundry market overall," Della Rocchetta said, although he conceded that Siltera's capacity is much, much smaller than that of major competitors like TSMC and UMC. Siltera obtained its manufacturing process in a licensing agreement with LSI Logic Corp. (Milpitas, Calif.). As part of that deal, LSI Logic receives guaranteed access to Siltera capacity, which Della Rocchetta said was less than 20 percent of the company's total capacity. Process plans In June, the company plans to produce prototype wafers at the 0.18-micron level, and should begin commercial production at that node in September, again using LSI Logic's process. Della Rocchetta said the company is sticking with the 0.25-micron level for now because that is where the bulk of the foundry market is working and Siltera is trying to jump immediately into high-volume production. By the fourth quarter, he said, the 0.18-micron production should begin contributing significantly to Siltera's revenue. Looking even further down the road, the company has invested in advanced tools, including i-line and deep-ultraviolet scanners from ASM Lithography, to support an eventual move to 0.13 micron. Della Rocchetta said he anticipates revenue this quarter in the "single-digit millions," rising to the "tens of millions" next quarter. Siltera has about a half-dozen customers now, including LSI Logic. Della Rocchetta described the others as top-tier chip companies, including both fabless and integrated-device manufacturers. Although the chip industry has been slowing down this year, Della Rocchetta said he was not spooked by starting up operations in the midst of a downturn. "We had no significant revenue in 2000, so there is only one direction we can go," he said. "If we post any revenue this year, that will be an improvement. And we are planning to really ramp up next year, just when the industry is expected to be much better. A downturn this year is better for us than a downturn next year." And if demand picks up, Siltera has room to expand. Besides the current fab, the Kulim site has enough space for as many as five more production facilities, Della Rocchetta said.