ASM Japan K.K., its Japanese subsidiary, opened a new Class-10 clean room facility at its Daini Technology Center in June of this year. The technology center is in close proximity to ASM Japan's main R&D facility at its headquarters in Tama, Tokyo.
According to Dr. Shingo Ikeda, Director of R&D at ASM Japan, the facility will be used to meet the increasing demonstration and process-support requirements for the highly successful Eagle 10 Trident™ single-wafer plasma CVD tool for customers in Taiwan, Korea, the United States, Europe as well as device manufacturers in Japan. The approximately 3600 square-foot clean room facility and its support infrastructure will also be utilized to accelerate development of new PECVD applications such as low-k and SiC for copper damascene structures and high-temperature processes as well as hardware and process development of the Eagle 12 Rapidfire™, the Company's 300 mm PECVD tool.
Its US subsidiary, ASM America, Inc., located in Phoenix, Arizona, will break ground in September of this year on its new 14,000+ square-foot demonstration laboratory. The laboratory will be divided into a 3,000 square-foot Class-1 cleanroom and an 11,000 square foot grey area for machine facilities and maintenance. The cleanroom itself will also feature dedicated areas for wafer cleaning and metrology. Completion of the cleanroom and installation of the first tools is scheduled for the First Quarter of 2001.
"The addition of this new state-of-the-art Class-1 cleanroom will give us an opportunity to showcase ASM's leading-edge processes on our various tools, which will include the latest 300mm versions," said Daniel Queyssac, President of ASM America and Chief Operating Officer of Front-End Businesses. "We are building these new superior demo facilities to push the envelope of technology and develop the processes required for tomorrow's thin films," Mr. Queyssac added. "Such films are developed, for example, for advanced gate-stack applications and involve integration of selective epitaxy, Atomic Layer CVD™ and integrated clean. In addition, ASM's expanding US customer base for vertical LPCVD furnaces and Plasma Enhanced CVD equipment will be able to use the facilities to demonstrate advanced wafer-processing on 300mm wafers."
In Addition to these centers, ASM International has research centers for development of front-end equipment in Bilthoven, the Netherlands; Leuven, Belgium and Espoo, Finland and in Singapore and Hong Kong for development of back-end equipment. The Company employs some 425 staff in research and 360 in hardware and software engineering.
ASM International reported net sales of €421 million for the first half of 2000, exceeding the €415 million in net sales for the total year 1999. The net earnings of € 39.3 million for the first six months of the current year were more than three times the € 11.1 million reported for the full year 1999. At June 30, 2000, one Euro was equal to $0.95.
About ASM
ASM International is headquartered in Bilthoven, the Netherlands. ASM International's subsidiaries design, develop, manufacture and market equipment and materials used to produce semiconductor devices. ASM International and its subsidiaries provide production solutions for the wafer processing, assembly and packaging segments of the semiconductor equipment market through their facilities in the United States, Europe, Japan and Asia. ASM International's common shares trade on the NASDAQ National Market and on the AEX Stock Exchange in Amsterdam under the symbol "ASM". More information on ASM can be found on its website at http://www.asm.com
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Safe Harbor Statement under the US Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: The statements regarding orders, earnings developments and the effects of research and new products on ASM's future, and other matters discussed in its statement, except for any historical data, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. These include, but are not limited to economic conditions in the semiconductor industry, currency fluctuations, the timing of significant orders, market acceptance of new products, competitive factors, risk factors related to litigation and other risks indicated in filings from time to time with the SEC and the Stock Exchange Authorities.