INDUSTRY NEWS

Rejuvenated Semicon Europa finds happy home in Munich

MUNICH, GERMANY—Improving chip market conditions and a new venue helped fuel increases in overall attendance and exhibit space at this year's Semicon Europa. Held at the New Munich Trade Fair Centre, the mid-April show saw an 18% jump in booth space to 16,650 square meters and a 37% increase in total registrants to 17,540, compared with figures from the 1998 event held at the Palexpo in Geneva, Switzerland, according to Terry Norgren, SEMI's supervisor of European expositions.

"The industry is preparing for the next phase of growth; it's a time for new beginnings," said Stanley Myers, president of the trade association, at an opening-day press conference. His optimistic tone comes on the heels of an abysmal 1998, a year when the worldwide semiconductor capital tool market fell nearly 21%, which he called "the sharpest tool market decline since SEMI started keeping statistics." He foresees moderate growth in 1999, especially in the second half of the year, led by "hot equipment markets" such as DUV lithography, low-k and copper processing, CMP, wafer inspection and metrology, logistics automation, and process sequence integration.

Although American companies such as Applied Materials and Novellus made major announcements in conjunction with the show, many European companies took full use of their home-court advantage. Dave Chavoustie of ASM Lithography noted that the Dutch company's first 193-nm system had shipped to a customer a few weeks earlier. Markus Wiederspahn, Carl Zeiss's CTO, explained that the German optics giant has chosen EUV lithography as "the best extension of optical lithography" among the next-generation technology candidates. He also offered details of a regional consortium for 157-nm lithography, coordinated by the German Ministry for Education and Research, which includes Zeiss, Heraeus, Schott, Lambda Physik, Jenoptik, and Infineon.

EUROPA DOPE: Attendees hurry toward exhibit halls at the New Munich Trade Fair Centre (top middle and left); robots work overtime at Stäubli's booth (bottom left); and SEMI's Walter Roessger and Stan Myers share a laugh at opening-day press conference (right).

Bob Hollands, Steag Electronic Systems vp of marketing, laid out the German company's game plan for expansion "through an integrated product offering . . . taking advantage of these synergies to grow," citing the recently completed acquisition of AG Associates as an example of this strategy. He said Steag's global presence improved recently when foreign reps were replaced with direct sales and service personnel. Tools in development include a wet clean module for metallics removal and what Hollands called "a leap-frog technology" in the CMP arena.

Wolfgang Mayr, an 18-year Siemens veteran hired as Jenoptik Infab's new president and CEO in August 1998, echoed the view that there are positive signs for the second half of 1999, saying that the fab automation company's recent revenues have been a "bit better than we expected." He cautioned that the transition to 300-mm manufacturing faces several immediate challenges, including the fact that most of the tools installed at the SC300 pilot line in Dresden incorporate "old processes" and need to be replaced with new equipment. Newly merged Krantz-TKT plans to give Mayr's company some regional and international competition. A Krantz-TKT spokesman explained how its "sea of lots" automated wafer transport concept, in which the lots are stored above the fab floor in the plenum area and vertically transferred to the main fab as needed, would free up valuable manufacturing floorspace.

Semicon Europa returns to the New Munich Trade Fair Centre on April 4—6, 2000. For more information, contact SEMI at 650/964-5111 (U.S.) or +32 2 2896490 (Europe), or log onto http://www.semi.org.

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