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BOC extends helium pact

BOC Gases has extended an agreement to supply helium to its Japanese joint venture for an additional 10 years. The New Jersey­based vendor has supplied helium to the Japan Helium Center since May 1970 after establishing the joint venture with Nippon Sanso, Suzuki Shokan, Tomoe Shokai, and Nakabo. The center provides the gas through a network of six transfill stations sited at strategic locations in Japan.

SpeedFam opens Japan center

SpeedFam cut the ribbon on a technology center that will handle all R&D, equipment demonstrations, and training for operations in the Pacific Rim. Located at Ayase-City, Japan, the four-story, 1300-m² center houses a Class 10 cleanroom and a laboratory for analyzing the vendor's CMP systems. Based in Chandler, AZ, the company has operations throughout the Pacific Rim, including Taiwan, South Korea, India, China, and Singapore.

Tosoh Taiwan launched

Tosoh SMD of Grove City, OH, has launched a Taiwanese subsidiary in association with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) to tap into the growing market for the company's thin-film technology. Tosoh SMD Taiwan will be located at an industrial park yet to be determined, according to Sue Thomas, marketing communications manager. Eugene Tan, the new business development manager at the vendor's headquarters, will be general manager of the new venture. The company will initially set up a sales force, and it hopes to begin manufacturing its line of sputtering targets and related specialty materials by the first quarter of 1998, Thomas says.

Analytical venture opens doors

Trace Analytical Systems and Service (TASS) has opened for business in Taiwan's Hsinchu Industrial Park as a joint venture between Trace Analytical of Menlo Park, CA, and Shing Chung Engineering of Taipei. The new firm makes monitoring systems for high-purity gases. The 9000-sq-ft facility includes a laboratory with a gas distribution system, test benches, and orbital welding stations.

Europe

$50M SOI plant coming

Soitec has begun construction of a $50-million headquarters and manufacturing site for silicon-on-insulator wafers in Bernin, France, near Grenoble. Completion is scheduled for mid-1998. The facility will enable the manufacturer to increase capacity for its line of Unibond wafers to 300,000 8-in. wafers per year by the end of 1998.

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