In the News

Business and technology news from the semiconductor and design tool industries

Fluence Technology, Inc. (Beaverton, Ore.) will acquire analog design and test automation leader, Opmaxx, Inc . (also of Beaverton). The acquisition will be accounted for under the purchase method of accounting. Fluence brings test automation solutions and Opmaxx brings analog design optimization, built-in-self-test (BIST), and fault analysis technology to this partnership. Doug Goodman, Opmaxx president and co-founder, will assume the role of chief operating officer and Oregon site manager for Fluence Technology. Opmaxx cofounder and chief technology officer, Dr. Bozena Kaminska, will serve as chief technology officer at Fluence Technology. Both will join John DiGirolamo as members of the executive management for Fluence Technology. The two companies merged locations and sales forces in October of 1998. This is the final step toward merging these two companies; the headquarters will remain at 8700 SW Creekside Place, Beaverton, Oregon.

Silicon Valley Group (SVG; San Jose) filed a complaint for copyright infringement to protect its investment and intellectual property from third-party vendors who may have duplicated or modified SVG software. The complaint was against AIO Corporation, C&D Semiconductor Services, Inc., Rite-Track Equipment Services, Inc., Semi Pro Microservice, Inc., Site Services, Inc., and Teleparts International, Inc. The complaint alleges that the named defendants have infringed the copyrights owned by SVG in software resident on its 8X series equipment by duplicating or modifying that software in the refurbishment and sale of replacement boards. The complaint further asks for a preliminary and permanent injunction against the plaintiffs' further infringement of SVG's copyrights and sale of infringing systems and boards, and for an award of damages in an amount to be proved at trial.

SVG has also completed the acquisition of Watkins-Johnson's Semiconductor Equipment Group (WJ; Scotts Valley, Calif.). Following this acquisition, WJ's Semiconductor Equipment Group will be consolidated with SVG's Thermco Systems, creating a new subsidiary called Silicon Valley Group, Thermal Systems. The transaction will entail an initial payment of approximately $9.0 million and the assumption of liabilities of approximately $37 million which is based upon a December 31, 1998 balance sheet and will be adjusted to a final closing balance sheet of July 2, 1999. The acquisition expands SVG's thin film offerings to the Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) and thermal markets, and gives the company access to an established customer base in Asia. SVG intends to leverage the combined resources and technology developments to address pre-metal dielectric (PMD), inter-metal dielectric (IMD), shallow trench isolation (STI), diffusion, oxidation, and annealing applications with low cost-of-ownership solutions.

Co-Design Automation, Inc. (San Jose) has become a member of Open Verilog International (OVI; Los Gatos, Calif.), and Simon Davidmann, CEO of Co-Design Automation, will join the OVI board of directors. Co-Design Automation announced the Superlog language last month. It is based on the Verilog Hardware Description Language (HDL) and uses the power of the C programming language as well as unique, advanced systems features. Superlog is aimed at unifying the various components of the system-on-a-chip (SOC) design flow, improving design cycle speed, and enabling the evolution of current methodologies to newer SOC methods. The language will be put into the public domain as it gains the approval of a group of users.

ASIC International (Oak Ridge, Tenn.) opened a test laboratory at its recently expanded facility in Commerce Park, Oak Ridge. With its test laboratory, the company will provide on-site testing for very complex, high-speed, analog, mixed-signal, and digital ASIC prototypes. These services will include testing for failure analysis, product engineering, design/debug, and other customer requirements.

Mentor Graphics Corp. (Wilsonville, Ore.) has created Supportcenter 2000, a support offering designed to deliver extended coverage for Y2K issues, eighteen hours a day, seven days a week from December 15, 1999 through January 30, 2000. While Mentor Graphics' software is guaranteed to be Y2K-compliant, it's anticipated that customers will still require technical support to solve Y2K-related environment and connectivity issues. This limited time worldwide offering is available at a premium price to Mentor customers, with current technical support contracts as part of the Mentor Graphics corporate Y2K program.

Chronology Corp. (Redmond, Wash.) and Denali Software, Inc . (Palo Alto, Calif.) agreed to a joint marketing and product development program targeted at enhancing their mutual customers' verification capabilities. Under the terms of the agreement, the companies will promote product capabilities and develop integrated functionality for analysis and simulation together. The first planned product of the new partnership will be an interface to allow Denali's Memory Modeler customers to view and analyze the timing behavior of generated models with Chronology's Timingdesigner tool and the recently announced TDML-enabled Timingviewer. Development is currently underway to enable Chronology's RAVE data generation and sequencing language to drive Denali's memory models.

Nassda Corp. (Mountain View, Calif.) has been formed to develop and market full-chip hierarchical circuit simulation and analysis technology and tools for memory and mixed-signal systems-on-a-chip (SOC) designs. The company was founded in 1998 and received an equity funding of $2.1 million from private investors. The company recently recruited Dr. Sang Wang to become Nassda's CEO. Both Dr. Wang and Dr. An-Chang, president and co-founder of Nassda, serve on Nassda's Board of Directors. Nassda has developed a new-generation, patent-pending hierarchical storage technology to efficiently store large full-chip circuit netlist.

Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) reported that the North American-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted a June 1999 book-to-bill ratio of 1.24. The three-month average of worldwide shipments in June 1999 was $1.2 billion. The three-month average bookings in June 1999 were $1.5 billion. The SEMI book-to-bill is a ratio of the three-month moving average bookings to the three-month moving average shipments for the North American semiconductor equipment industry.

SEMI also reported that the SEMIndex, a global equity index of 66 manufacturers of semiconductor equipment and materials, rose 33.6 percent in the second quarter of 1999. Since its inception on January 4, 1999, the SEMIndex has risen nearly 64 percent from its opening value, closing at 163.81 on June 30. Since January 4, some $40 billion in new investment dollars have been added to the sector, bringing the market capitalization of the SEMIndex to $105 billion at the June 30 close. SEMI also announced the addition of four companies to the SEMIndex: MKS Instruments (Nasdaq: MKSI), SOITEC SA (Nouveau March/Paris Bourse: 7206), Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates (Nasdaq: VSEA), and Suss Microtec AG (Neuer Markt: SMH). This brings the total number of global public companies in the index to 66 (48 U.S., 10 Europe, 8 Japan). MKS Instruments (Andover, Mass.) is a developer, manufacturer, and supplier of instruments, components, and subsystems used to measure, control, and analyze gases in semiconductor manufacturing. SOITEC SA (Grenoble, France) is a supplier of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers and an innovator of SOI technology. Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates (Gloucester, Mass.) manufactures and supplies ion implantation systems and equipment used to manufacture semiconductor chips. Suss Microtec AG (Munich, Germany) is a manufacturer and supplier of mask aligners, bonders, flip chip bonders, spin coaters, and probe systems used in the manufacture and advanced packaging of semiconductors and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS).

Movers and Shakers

Silicon Integration Initiative, Inc. (Si2) has elected its 1999-2000 Board of Directors. The Si2 Board members oversee the direction of the consortium and provide approval, input, and guidance regarding major policy and strategic decisions. The new board members are: Dinesh Bettadapur, technical assistant to VP and GM, IA-64 Processor Division, Intel Corporation; Jean-Louis Bories , executive VP and GM, Information Appliance Group, National Semiconductor; and Nancy Nettleton , ASIC Design Methodology manager, Sun Microsystems. Nettleton will serve as the consortium's Board secretary. In addition, several Board member companies were reintroduced with new representation: Jim Hogan , VP of Marketing IC Implementation, Cadence Design Systems; Steve Jamison , Library and Technology director, Motorola; Andrew Graham remains president of Si2; Dr. John Darringer, manager of EDA Strategy, IBM Corporation was re-elected as chairman; and Don Guiou , vice-president and division general manager, Mentor Graphics, returns to the Board as Treasurer. Jan-Olof Kismalm , director of Microelectronics, LM Ericsson, and Thomas Daniel , vice president of ASIC Technology, LSI Logic Corporation, both return for the new term. Si2 provides engineering consultation and services to industry-leading silicon, electronic systems, and EDA companies for synergistic multi-company efforts focused on improving productivity and costs in the design and production of integrated silicon systems. The organization represents more than 40 members throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.

Viewlogic Systems, Inc. (Marlboro, Mass.), promoted James D. Meikle to the position of vice president of Customer Services. In his new position, he will be responsible for leading Viewlogic's corporate applications, usability engineering and educational services. For the past 11 years, Meikle managed the company's Customer Training, Technical Services, and Education Services groups and, most recently, served as Director of Customer Services. Prior to Viewlogic, Meikle held positions at Automatix, Inc. and GCA Corporation.

VHDL International (VI) elected Stanley J. Krolikoski , senior architect of the System Level Design Group at Cadence Design Systems, Inc., as president of its Board of Directors. Krolikoski replaces Steve Schulz, senior member of the technical staff at Texas Instruments (Dallas, Tex.), who served as president for two terms. Steve will continue to represent Texas Instruments on the Board. Gabe Moretti , senior vice president of engineering at VeriBest (Boulder, Colo.), continues as VI's chairman. Gregory D. Peterson , chief technical officer of FTL Systems, Inc. (Rochester, Minn.), is now chair elect of the VHDL International User's Forum (VIUF), replacing Praveen Chawla , president of EDAptive (Dayton, Ohio).

TSMC (Taiwan) appointed Hans Rohrer as president of TSMC Europe. Rohrer will be responsible for all of TSMC's European activities, reporting to Ron Norris, senior vice president, worldwide marketing and sales. Prior to joining TSMC, Rohrer was vice president and general manager of National Semiconductor Europe for seven years.

Paul Matranga joined Vitesse Semiconductor Corp. (Camarillo, Calif.) as the vice president of the quality system group. Matranga will be responsible for management and continuous improvement of Vitesse's quality system worldwide, including Vitesse's fabrication facility in Colorado Springs. Matranga reports to Louis R. Tomasetta, Vitesse's CEO and president. Matranga joins Vitesse from Intel (formerly Digital Equipment Corp.) in Hudson, Mass., where he spent over 14 years in various quality positions, most recently as Group Quality Manager.

Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing (Milpitas, Calif.) appointed Michael J. Buehler-Garcia as director of marketing for the Americas. Buehler-Garcia will be responsible for strategic and tactical marketing activities, including the development of value-added business practices for Chartered's target markets. Buehler-Garcia will report to Kevin Meyer, vice president of worldwide marketing. Buehler-Garcia has more than 15 years' experience in ASIC design and marketing. Most recently, he was group director of strategic relationship marketing at Cadence Design Systems.

Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing (Singapore) appointed Bruno Guilmart as president of the Asia-Pacific and Japan region. Guilmart is responsible for all sales and business operations in the region, which includes Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Singapore, Australia, Japan and Israel. He is based at the company's headquarters in Singapore and reports to Rob Baxter, senior vice president of business operations. Guilmart joins Chartered with more than 17 years of experience in semiconductor engineering, marketing, and business development. From 1996 until joining Chartered, he was employed by Cadence Design Systems, Inc.

Syntest Technologies, Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) appointed Paul Carnaggio as Syntest's senior account manager for the East Coast region. Carnaggio is based in Pittsburgh, and reports to Syntest's founder and president, L. T. Wang. He is responsible for developing Syntest's presence in the Eastern U.S. Previously, Carnaggio was a division sales manager at Genrad, and vice president of Sales and Marketing at Daymarc and Cimflex Teknowledge.

Semiconductor industry veteran Ted Myers was named vice president of design for local manufacturer Summit Microelectronics (Cupertino, Calif.). Myers, who has over 20 years of semiconductor industry design experience, is a member of the founding group of Summit. Prior to Summit's founding, Myers was a design manager for National Semiconductor and Fairchild Semiconductor.

IPC stated that Iwona Turlik , a leading expert in manufacturing and new technologies, will make the keynote presentation at IPCWorks '99. IPCWorks '99, a technical conference featuring an International Summit on Lead-free Electronics Assemblies, takes place October 23-28, 1999, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Minneapolis, Minn. In her talk, Turlik, vice president and director of the Motorola Advanced Technology Center, will focus on the issues and possible effects of the movement to lead-free electronics in her presentation, Electronics and the Environment. Turlik specializes in program management and strategic accounts, packaging and interconnection technologies, and high performance ICs.

Money Bits

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (San Jose) announced second quarter revenue of $264 million, a decrease of 16 percent over the same period in 1998, and $0.08 diluted earnings per share, excluding unusual items and goodwill amortization, a decrease of 67 percent from the second quarter of 1998. Product revenue for the second quarter of 1999 totaled $118 million, down 37 percent from the first quarter of 1999. Services revenue was $75 million, an increase of 12 percent over the second quarter of 1998. Cadence achieved a services gross margin of 35 percent, eight percentage points higher than the 27 percent posted in the second quarter of 1998

Applied Microsystems Corp. (AMC; Redmond, Wash.) expects revenues for its second quarter ending June 30, 1999 to be between $7.2 million and $7.4 million, which compares to $9.2 million in the second quarter of 1998. The company expects to report a loss per share for its second quarter between $0.28 and $0.33 as compared to a profit of $0.01 per share in the prior year's quarter.

Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates, Inc. (Gloucester, Mass.) announced results for the third quarter of fiscal 1999, ended July 2, 1999. Third quarter revenues totaled $63.8 million, up 20 percent from the $53.2 million revenue level in this fiscal year's second quarter, but down 22 percent from the prior year's quarterly revenue of $81.8 million. The quarter's net loss per share was $0.11, compared with a net loss per share of $0.63 in the second quarter of this fiscal year and earnings per share of $0.03 on a diluted basis for the previous year's third quarter. For the nine-month fiscal year period, revenues reached $164.4 million. The net loss per share for the nine months was $0.96. Gross profit for the quarter of $21.9 million represented 34 percent of revenues, compared with 7 percent before special charges and other unusual items as reported in the previous quarter.

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