News & Analysis
Japan quake: Tracking the status of fabs in wake of disaster
3/14/2011 2:30 PM EDT
Semiconductor equipment, materials suppliers
Semiconductor equipment and materials suppliers, including JSR, SEH, TEL and others reported damage at various plants from the quake. SEH's silicon wafer plant was impacted. Advantest, DNS and others incurred minimal damage. As reported, the quake prompted supply chain worries in the industry.
"The quake has disrupted the supply of materials," said market research firm VLSI Research Inc., in a report. "Wafer supplier Shin-Etsu Semiconductor and SUMCO have halted production in some of their facilities due to damages and power outages. Some of these facilities are expected to stay off line as Japan grapples with the devastating aftermath of the earthquake. Wafer production in the affected region is around 20 percent of the world's total."
ATE vendor Advantest Corp. said it incurred minimal damage from the quake and that its major domestic facilities resumed operation Monday. No injuries or deaths of Advantest employees were reported and the company said it is still working to confirm the safety of all workers. Advantest said it would make every effort to minimize the impact on operations and production schedules due to the rolling blackouts the country is currently experiencing. [Update: On March 22, Advantest confirmed that all 2,793 domestic employees were safe. No serious injuries have been reported. Some family members of employees remain unaccounted for; the company is continuing to seek confirmation of their whereabouts. In addition, Advantest Laboratories, Ltd., based in Sendai, appears to be limited to plumbing and electrical wiring for air conditioning. Repairs may take some time, but office work at the facility resumed on March 22. Final checks and repairs are being carried out in the clean room, which is expected to be operational on a trial basis by the end of the month. As of March 22, Advantest has not suffered any impact from the rolling blackouts being implemented in Japan. Advantest expects the impact of the disaster on its earnings and revenues to be minimal.]
Test and packaging provider Amkor Technology Inc. said its facility in Kitakami, Iwate prefecture, was damaged during the earthquake, but was not hit by the subsequent tsunami. The Kitakami facility is currently closed due to power interruptions, Amkor said. Amkor stressed that Iate is the company's smallest facility in terms of units and net sales and that most of its operations are conducted outside of Japan. Amkor is working with its customers and suppliers to assess the situation and evaluate alternative sources of supply where appropriate, the company said.
Applied Materials Inc. has more than 650 employees and 22 facilities in Japan. The company evacuated its primary parts center near Tokyo immediately after the earthquake and the facility sustained some limited damage. The parts center remains closed. Its offices in Naka and Sendai also suffered minor damage. Applied is currently establishing a customer engineering support center in the Osaka office ''to enable resumption of our customer service capability in the country.'' Applied's Worldwide Operations group has been working to minimize the impact of the event on its global supply chain. ''A team has been established to address supply disruptions and identify alternate suppliers,'' Applied said.
Dainippon Screen Group (DNS), a maker of IC equipment and other products, said the majority of its facilities, located in the Kyoto and Shiga prefectures in southwest Japan, were undamaged and that all procurement for production is under control. "So far shipment of our products is not affected,'' according to DNS. The company said all of its employees and their families the affected area are safe and said it is still checking for final confirmation. [Update: As of March 18, DNS confirmed that one group, Quartz Lead Co. in Fukushima Prefecture, which makes semiconductor manufacturing parts, reported minor building and equipment damage, but no impact to manufacturing. ''Therefore, as soon as recovery works for social and business infrastructure such as electricity and water supplies we will be starting product operation,'' DNS said. ''Regarding the customer service in Tohoku disaster area, there are some (impact) due to the delay of recovery works for transportation and from consideration on the safety.']
On March 25, Hitachi High-Technologies Corp. reported that power, gas, water, and other utilities have been restored at it Naka Division and at Hitachi High-Tech Manufacturing & Service Corp.-both in Hitachinaka, Ibaraki Prefecture. Service and production of consumable parts for analytical instruments and medical devices were due to restart from March 25. Production of semiconductor inspection and measurement equipment, and science & medical-related equipment are due to restart March 29. ''Depending on the product, normal operations have yet to resume due to the inability to procure parts and other limitations in the supply chain,'' the company said.
JSR Corp. Thursday (March 24), JSR issued a status update again saying the situations at its Chiba plant in Ichihara City, Chiba prefecture and its Kashima plant in Kamisu City, Ibaraki prefecture. remain the same as previously reported. The company said previously that infrastructure disruption and damage at both plants forced a halt to manufacturing operations. JSR said Thursday that upplies of some utilities, such as steam, have been interrupted and that operations at the Kashima Plant have been completely stopped. The company warned that if the situation remains unchanged for an unspecified period it could create shortages of ethylene propylene rubber beginning in the middle of April, JSR said, adding that inventory levels of that product have been very low due to a tight demand and supply balance that existed before the earthquake hit. But JSR said it does not foresse any materials or logistics issues that would impact manufacturing photoresits for semiconductor manufacturing.
KLA-Tencor Corp. facilities are operational following the earthquake. Its supply chain, as well as assessments of KLA-Tencor critical technology of its secondary supply chain, do not yet show any impact. ''Power outages and local transportation are currently only creating short term delays,'' according to KLA-Tencor.
Lam Research Corp. said its ''Business Continuity Team was activated to support our employees, customers, suppliers and other partners. We have continued to conduct regular business in Japan, responding with appropriate adjustments to our operations.''
Silicon wafer maker MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. said Tuesday (April 12) that it has resumed partial production of 300-mm silicon wafers at its facility in Utsunomiya, Japan, a little more than a month after the arthquake knocked the plant off line, but that full production won't be recovered until mid-May. MEMC said the Utsunomiya facility has been shipping unaffected product and has now resumed production on qualified process tools. The company continues to inspect, qualify and ramp additional equipment, MEMC said. Production yield on operating tools has been comparable to pre-earthquake levels, raw material availability has been good, and power availability has improved, MEMC said. According to market research firm IHS iSuppli, the Utsunomiya facility is responsible for 5 percent of the world's raw silicon wafer production capacity.
Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Inc. (MGC) said March 29 (posted on its website April 1) that is expects to achieve pre-earthquake production levels for bismaleimide triazine (BT) resin for semiconductor substrates from the beginning of May . Analysts have expressed concern that nearly all of the world's supply of bismaleimide triazine resin,an epoxy resin used in packaging substrates for ICs used in mobile devices, comes from Mitsubishi Gas Chemical. The prediction of a return to full production came after Mitsubishi had said March 22 that it was planning to get back to 25 percent of pre-earthquake production at its Electrotechno Co. Ltd. (Nishishirakawa-gun, Fukushima) subsidiary in April as part of a first phase of recovery. Mitsubishi said last week that two of its facilities, one in Fukushima prefecture and one in Ibaraki prefecture, shut down due to partial damage to equipment and buildings.
Chemical and silicon wafer giant Shin-Etsu Group said Monday (April11) that the company is still in the process of inspecting and restoring the facilities and equipment at its massive Shirakawa plant in Nishigo Village, Fukushima prefecture. The company said it would resume operations there "within a short period of time," but gave no specific timetable. According to IHS iSuppli, the Shirakawa facility is responsible for about 20 percent of the global supply of raw silicon wafers. Shin-Etsu said it had started shipping from the Shirakawa plant inventory that was produced prior to March 11. The company said it would utilize other Shin-Etsu Group worldwide silicon wafer production sites to compensate for the temporary loss of the Shirakawa facility. Shin-Etsu said it was also still in the process of restoring facilities and equipment at its polyvinyl chloride plant in Kamisu, Ibaraki prefecture. Optical perform fiber production at the Kamisu site partially resumed Monday, but the plant was idled again late Monday after a strong 7.0-magnitude aftershock hit the region, Shin-Etsu said. The company said its two affected production facilities could be impacted by power supply restrictions this summer that may be put in force by Tokyo Electric Power Co. and the Tohoku Electric Power Co."We will make company-wide efforts to reduce the consumption of electric power by utilizing the technologies and expertise we possess," Shin-Etsu said.
Japanese silicon wafer maker Sumco Corp. said Tuesday (April 12) that manufacturing partially resumed at its Yonezawa silicon wafer plant, using equipment that was not damaged in the March 11 earthquake. Sumco said the Yonezawa plant suffered no damage from any of the strong aftershocks that have hit the region. Sumco said it moved production of some products that can be manufactured at its other sites.
Tokyo Electron Ltd. (TEL) halted operations at three plants in Miyagi and Iwate prefectures following the April 7 aftershock, according to a Bloomberg report, which quoted a Tokyo-based TEL spokesperson. TEL said April 1 that operations resumed March 28 at its etch systems plants in Matsushima City, Miyagi prefecture and its RLSA etch development institute in Sendai City, Miyagi prefecture. Shipments from the Matsushima facility are expected to resume in late April or early May, TEL said. In the meantime, the company said it would use as the primary production site for TEL etch systems the company's Yamanashi plant in Nirasaki City, which was unaffected by the earthquake or subsequent disruptions. TEL's thermal processing system production facility in Oshu City, Iwate prefecture has been operational since March 17, TEL said. Construction was delayed on a new etch systems plant under construction in Taiwa City, Miyagi prefecture, TEL said. That facility's R&D center and office buildings will commence operations in July and the production facility there—which also suffered damage from a small fire in February—will begin operations in October, TEL said. The company said it has contacted all of its suppliers and that more than 90 percent of them are expected to restart operations soon. Overall, TEL said it expects minimal impact on the production schedule for the first half of its fiscal year ending in March 2012. TEL said it has has confirmed that all its employees in the affected area are safe.
Tokyo Seimitsu Group said all plants have no serious damage. The group has seen a few delays in product shipments due to ''the domestic transportation network instability. In addition, scheduled blackouts due to the shortage of electric power might affect to the operations. The group is going to focusing on minimize these effects.''
Semiconductor equipment and materials suppliers, including JSR, SEH, TEL and others reported damage at various plants from the quake. SEH's silicon wafer plant was impacted. Advantest, DNS and others incurred minimal damage. As reported, the quake prompted supply chain worries in the industry.
"The quake has disrupted the supply of materials," said market research firm VLSI Research Inc., in a report. "Wafer supplier Shin-Etsu Semiconductor and SUMCO have halted production in some of their facilities due to damages and power outages. Some of these facilities are expected to stay off line as Japan grapples with the devastating aftermath of the earthquake. Wafer production in the affected region is around 20 percent of the world's total."
ATE vendor Advantest Corp. said it incurred minimal damage from the quake and that its major domestic facilities resumed operation Monday. No injuries or deaths of Advantest employees were reported and the company said it is still working to confirm the safety of all workers. Advantest said it would make every effort to minimize the impact on operations and production schedules due to the rolling blackouts the country is currently experiencing. [Update: On March 22, Advantest confirmed that all 2,793 domestic employees were safe. No serious injuries have been reported. Some family members of employees remain unaccounted for; the company is continuing to seek confirmation of their whereabouts. In addition, Advantest Laboratories, Ltd., based in Sendai, appears to be limited to plumbing and electrical wiring for air conditioning. Repairs may take some time, but office work at the facility resumed on March 22. Final checks and repairs are being carried out in the clean room, which is expected to be operational on a trial basis by the end of the month. As of March 22, Advantest has not suffered any impact from the rolling blackouts being implemented in Japan. Advantest expects the impact of the disaster on its earnings and revenues to be minimal.]
Test and packaging provider Amkor Technology Inc. said its facility in Kitakami, Iwate prefecture, was damaged during the earthquake, but was not hit by the subsequent tsunami. The Kitakami facility is currently closed due to power interruptions, Amkor said. Amkor stressed that Iate is the company's smallest facility in terms of units and net sales and that most of its operations are conducted outside of Japan. Amkor is working with its customers and suppliers to assess the situation and evaluate alternative sources of supply where appropriate, the company said.
Applied Materials Inc. has more than 650 employees and 22 facilities in Japan. The company evacuated its primary parts center near Tokyo immediately after the earthquake and the facility sustained some limited damage. The parts center remains closed. Its offices in Naka and Sendai also suffered minor damage. Applied is currently establishing a customer engineering support center in the Osaka office ''to enable resumption of our customer service capability in the country.'' Applied's Worldwide Operations group has been working to minimize the impact of the event on its global supply chain. ''A team has been established to address supply disruptions and identify alternate suppliers,'' Applied said.
Dainippon Screen Group (DNS), a maker of IC equipment and other products, said the majority of its facilities, located in the Kyoto and Shiga prefectures in southwest Japan, were undamaged and that all procurement for production is under control. "So far shipment of our products is not affected,'' according to DNS. The company said all of its employees and their families the affected area are safe and said it is still checking for final confirmation. [Update: As of March 18, DNS confirmed that one group, Quartz Lead Co. in Fukushima Prefecture, which makes semiconductor manufacturing parts, reported minor building and equipment damage, but no impact to manufacturing. ''Therefore, as soon as recovery works for social and business infrastructure such as electricity and water supplies we will be starting product operation,'' DNS said. ''Regarding the customer service in Tohoku disaster area, there are some (impact) due to the delay of recovery works for transportation and from consideration on the safety.']
On March 25, Hitachi High-Technologies Corp. reported that power, gas, water, and other utilities have been restored at it Naka Division and at Hitachi High-Tech Manufacturing & Service Corp.-both in Hitachinaka, Ibaraki Prefecture. Service and production of consumable parts for analytical instruments and medical devices were due to restart from March 25. Production of semiconductor inspection and measurement equipment, and science & medical-related equipment are due to restart March 29. ''Depending on the product, normal operations have yet to resume due to the inability to procure parts and other limitations in the supply chain,'' the company said.
JSR Corp. Thursday (March 24), JSR issued a status update again saying the situations at its Chiba plant in Ichihara City, Chiba prefecture and its Kashima plant in Kamisu City, Ibaraki prefecture. remain the same as previously reported. The company said previously that infrastructure disruption and damage at both plants forced a halt to manufacturing operations. JSR said Thursday that upplies of some utilities, such as steam, have been interrupted and that operations at the Kashima Plant have been completely stopped. The company warned that if the situation remains unchanged for an unspecified period it could create shortages of ethylene propylene rubber beginning in the middle of April, JSR said, adding that inventory levels of that product have been very low due to a tight demand and supply balance that existed before the earthquake hit. But JSR said it does not foresse any materials or logistics issues that would impact manufacturing photoresits for semiconductor manufacturing.
KLA-Tencor Corp. facilities are operational following the earthquake. Its supply chain, as well as assessments of KLA-Tencor critical technology of its secondary supply chain, do not yet show any impact. ''Power outages and local transportation are currently only creating short term delays,'' according to KLA-Tencor.
Lam Research Corp. said its ''Business Continuity Team was activated to support our employees, customers, suppliers and other partners. We have continued to conduct regular business in Japan, responding with appropriate adjustments to our operations.''
Silicon wafer maker MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. said Tuesday (April 12) that it has resumed partial production of 300-mm silicon wafers at its facility in Utsunomiya, Japan, a little more than a month after the arthquake knocked the plant off line, but that full production won't be recovered until mid-May. MEMC said the Utsunomiya facility has been shipping unaffected product and has now resumed production on qualified process tools. The company continues to inspect, qualify and ramp additional equipment, MEMC said. Production yield on operating tools has been comparable to pre-earthquake levels, raw material availability has been good, and power availability has improved, MEMC said. According to market research firm IHS iSuppli, the Utsunomiya facility is responsible for 5 percent of the world's raw silicon wafer production capacity.
Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Inc. (MGC) said March 29 (posted on its website April 1) that is expects to achieve pre-earthquake production levels for bismaleimide triazine (BT) resin for semiconductor substrates from the beginning of May . Analysts have expressed concern that nearly all of the world's supply of bismaleimide triazine resin,an epoxy resin used in packaging substrates for ICs used in mobile devices, comes from Mitsubishi Gas Chemical. The prediction of a return to full production came after Mitsubishi had said March 22 that it was planning to get back to 25 percent of pre-earthquake production at its Electrotechno Co. Ltd. (Nishishirakawa-gun, Fukushima) subsidiary in April as part of a first phase of recovery. Mitsubishi said last week that two of its facilities, one in Fukushima prefecture and one in Ibaraki prefecture, shut down due to partial damage to equipment and buildings.
Chemical and silicon wafer giant Shin-Etsu Group said Monday (April11) that the company is still in the process of inspecting and restoring the facilities and equipment at its massive Shirakawa plant in Nishigo Village, Fukushima prefecture. The company said it would resume operations there "within a short period of time," but gave no specific timetable. According to IHS iSuppli, the Shirakawa facility is responsible for about 20 percent of the global supply of raw silicon wafers. Shin-Etsu said it had started shipping from the Shirakawa plant inventory that was produced prior to March 11. The company said it would utilize other Shin-Etsu Group worldwide silicon wafer production sites to compensate for the temporary loss of the Shirakawa facility. Shin-Etsu said it was also still in the process of restoring facilities and equipment at its polyvinyl chloride plant in Kamisu, Ibaraki prefecture. Optical perform fiber production at the Kamisu site partially resumed Monday, but the plant was idled again late Monday after a strong 7.0-magnitude aftershock hit the region, Shin-Etsu said. The company said its two affected production facilities could be impacted by power supply restrictions this summer that may be put in force by Tokyo Electric Power Co. and the Tohoku Electric Power Co."We will make company-wide efforts to reduce the consumption of electric power by utilizing the technologies and expertise we possess," Shin-Etsu said.
Japanese silicon wafer maker Sumco Corp. said Tuesday (April 12) that manufacturing partially resumed at its Yonezawa silicon wafer plant, using equipment that was not damaged in the March 11 earthquake. Sumco said the Yonezawa plant suffered no damage from any of the strong aftershocks that have hit the region. Sumco said it moved production of some products that can be manufactured at its other sites.
Tokyo Electron Ltd. (TEL) halted operations at three plants in Miyagi and Iwate prefectures following the April 7 aftershock, according to a Bloomberg report, which quoted a Tokyo-based TEL spokesperson. TEL said April 1 that operations resumed March 28 at its etch systems plants in Matsushima City, Miyagi prefecture and its RLSA etch development institute in Sendai City, Miyagi prefecture. Shipments from the Matsushima facility are expected to resume in late April or early May, TEL said. In the meantime, the company said it would use as the primary production site for TEL etch systems the company's Yamanashi plant in Nirasaki City, which was unaffected by the earthquake or subsequent disruptions. TEL's thermal processing system production facility in Oshu City, Iwate prefecture has been operational since March 17, TEL said. Construction was delayed on a new etch systems plant under construction in Taiwa City, Miyagi prefecture, TEL said. That facility's R&D center and office buildings will commence operations in July and the production facility there—which also suffered damage from a small fire in February—will begin operations in October, TEL said. The company said it has contacted all of its suppliers and that more than 90 percent of them are expected to restart operations soon. Overall, TEL said it expects minimal impact on the production schedule for the first half of its fiscal year ending in March 2012. TEL said it has has confirmed that all its employees in the affected area are safe.
Tokyo Seimitsu Group said all plants have no serious damage. The group has seen a few delays in product shipments due to ''the domestic transportation network instability. In addition, scheduled blackouts due to the shortage of electric power might affect to the operations. The group is going to focusing on minimize these effects.''
Company-by-company status reports:
1. Chip makers, A-O
2. Chip makers, P-T
3. Chip equipment/materials suppliers
4. CE manufacturers/automakers
5. Test and measurement companies
1. Chip makers, A-O
2. Chip makers, P-T
3. Chip equipment/materials suppliers
4. CE manufacturers/automakers
5. Test and measurement companies
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Silicon_Smith
3/15/2011 11:50 AM EDT
Fujitsu seems to have been really impacted badly. No numbers yet, but I am afraid it might really effect their revenue for 2011.
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Luis Sanchez
3/15/2011 4:43 PM EDT
This is a very good note.
It's best to know which factories were damaged so that we can take our precautions. If there are some which will take until july the earliest to be ready that's seems to be quite a big damage! You can't help feeling sorry for all the japanese people.
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goafrit
3/16/2011 1:22 PM EDT
I think the whole of Japan GDP will depress. It will be a miracle if this does not trigger domino bankruptcies for many firms.
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docdivakar
3/16/2011 6:50 PM EDT
This is a good article, thanks EE Times! It is good info on the fabs, but I imagine the effects are even more severe on the ancillaries / ecosystem partners of the Semi fabs.
Even with minimal damages, I am sure there are building code requirements that limit re-opening of facilities without inspection by professional engineers. Looks like we will be in for a drawn-out recovery phase in Japan. In the mean time this is sure going to have an impact on the availability and pricing of many consumer gadgets and devices.
Dr. MP Divakar
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lifewingmate
3/18/2011 11:33 AM EDT
I agree with Dr. Divakar that EE Times did an excellent job on this article providing pertinent details in an overview that spans the entire semiconductor industry in Japan. I send out my thoughts and wishes of full recovery and healing for the people of Japan.
I learned quite a bit about Japan's crucial role in providing limited resources and manufacturing facilities to produce some of the world's most desired electronics. Thank you for this report, EETimes! Hopefully, we can all pitch in globally to help them recover quickly.
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$@ru
3/18/2011 5:41 AM EDT
Hope some new locations like India will get a chance to set up fabs. Now its snowing in Japan. Don't play with nature. if it returns the favour we are helpless.
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Sheetal.Pandey
3/31/2011 6:51 AM EDT
Oh my god! so much of loss would have occured to Japan's economy. Loss of people and loss of resources. But Japan is prone to earthquakes right?
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