Semiconductor Equipment Industry Research Articles

Comparative Analysis of Financial Ratios of Selected Semiconductor Equipment Firms During 2020-2023

As a matter of fact, the semiconductor equipment industry has been developing rapidly. On this basis, this research provides a comparative analysis of the financial ratios of four selected semiconductor equipment firms, i.e., Axcelis Technologies (ACLS), ACM Research (ACMR), Onto Innovation (ONTO), and Veeco Instruments (VECO), over the period from 2020 to 2023. With this in mind, the study aims to evaluate the financial health, operational efficiency, as well as market performance of these firms in order to identify the optimal investment target for value investing. According to the analysis, a specific investing target is selected. Overall, this research is useful in comparing assets and liabilities, gross revenue, stocks, bonds, return on investment, and other specifications of each of these companies that bring out their strong and weak areas. Based on the analysis, ACLS emerges as the most promising candidate due to its robust financial performance and stable market valuation.

Analyzing the Trade Pattern of the Korea’s Semiconductor Equipment, its Parts and Components Industry

Analyzing the Trade Pattern of the Korea’s Semiconductor Equipment, its Parts and Components Industry

A Model of Technological Progress in the Microprocessor Industry

This paper develops a model of technological progress in the microprocessor industry that connects the seemingly disparate engineering and economic measures of technological progress. Technological progress in the microprocessor industry is driven by the repeated adoption of higher quality vintages of capital equipment produced by the upstream semiconductor equipment industry. The model characterizes the optimal adoption decision of a microprocessor firm and the resulting rate of technological progress. In conjunction with parameters estimated using a new dataset of the microprocessor industry, the model suggests explanations for the acceleration in technological progress during 1990-2000 and the subsequent slowdown.

Optimizing reliability and service parts logistics for a time-varying installed base

Performance based contracting (PBC) emerges as a new after-sales service practice to support the operation and maintenance of capital equipment or systems. Under the PBC framework, the goal of the study is to increase the system operational availability while minimizing the logistics footprint through the design for reliability. We consider the situation where the number of installed systems randomly increases over the planning horizon, resulting in a non-stationary maintenance and repair demand. Renewal equation and Poisson process are used to estimate the aggregate fleet failures. We propose a dynamic stocking policy that adaptively replenishes the inventory to meet the time-varying parts demand. An optimization model is formulated and solved under a multi-phase adaptive inventory control policy. The study provides theoretical insights into the performance-driven service operation in the context of changing system fleet size due to new installations. Trade-offs between reliability design and inventory level are examined and compared in various shipment scenarios. Numerical examples drawn from semiconductor equipment industry are used to demonstrate the applicability and the performance of the proposed method.

The Development of using the digital projection method to measure the contact angle of ball screw

The ball screw frequently used to drive or translate the parts on the precision machine, such as machine tool and motorized stage. Therefore they were most frequently used on the precision machine, semiconductor equipment, medical instrument and aero industry. The main parts of ball screw are screw, ball and nut. The contact angle between the screw, ball and nut will affect the performance (include loading and noise) and lifecycle of a ball screw. If the actual contact angle and the designed contact angle are not the same, the friction between the ball, screw and nut will increase and it will result in the thermal increase and lifecycle decrease. This paper combines the traditional profile projector and commercial digital camera to build an imaging based and noncontact measurements system. It can implement the contact angle measurement quickly and accurately. Three different pitch angles of ball screws were completed tests in this paper. The angle resolution of this measurement system is about 0.001 degree and its accuracy is about 0.05 degree.

A Model of Technological Progress in the Microprocessor Industry

This paper develops a model of technological progress in the microprocessor industry that connects the seemingly disparate engineering and economic measures of technological progress. Technological progress in the microprocessor industry is driven by the repeated adoption of higher quality vintages of capital equipment produced by the upstream semiconductor equipment industry. The model characterizes the optimal adoption decision of a microprocessor firm and the resulting rate of technological progress. In conjunction with parameters estimated using a new dataset of the microprocessor industry, the model suggests explanations for the acceleration in technological progress during 1990-2000 and the subsequent slowdown.

반도체 플라즈마 식각 시스템의 균일도 향상을 위한 CCP와 ICP 결합 임피던스정합 장치

This paper proposes a DFPS (Dual Frequency Power Source) impedance matching device for uniformity improvement of a semiconductor plasma etching system. The DFPS consists of two parts for safe plasma processing on large-area substrates. The first part is an ICP (Inductively Coupled Plasma) for high integration by using ferrite core. The second part is a CCP (Capacitive Coupled Plasma) to control uniformity of whole cells. Proposed DFPS can achieve high productivity improvement required for semiconductor equipment industry. The proposed plasma system is analyzed, simulated and experimentally verified with a matching equipment at 27.12MHz and 400kHz.

An Exploratory Study of the Effect of Buyer-supplier Relationship on Supplier’s Innovation：Cases from Semiconductor Equipment Industry

An Exploratory Study of the Effect of Buyer-supplier Relationship on Supplier’s Innovation：Cases from Semiconductor Equipment Industry

The Recession's Silver Lining

Countless research institutions contributed to the digital, wireless, and mobile technologies that underpin our modern world. But none contributed more than Bell Telephone Laboratories, which logged an astonishing share of the key advances of the 20th century, including the transistor, the cellphone, the digital signal processor, the laser, the Unix operating system, and motionpicture sound. We no longer have Bell Labs to fund research with long-term payback. That has prompted many to wonder: Who will pay for such research now, and where will it be done? We say: Governments and corporations must share the burden, and they must do it in structured collaborations among universities, companies, and government agencies in which intellectual property is freely available to all participants. We also say, the sooner we can get started, the better. The recession has left R&D spending in free fall. This year, the global semiconductor industry is expected to spend just US $200 billion on research-$50 billion less than in 2008. And times are really tough in the semiconductor equipment industry, whose R&D operations will shrivel like a salted leech from $34 billion in 2007 down to a pitiful $10 billion in 2009.

Microfluidic MEMS for semiconductor processing

The advent of MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) will enable dramatic changes in semiconductor processing. MEMS-based devices offer opportunities to achieve higher performance and functionality, at lower cost, with decreased size and increased reliability. In this work, we describe the achievement of several important devices for use in the semiconductor equipment industry. They include a low-flow mass flow controller, a high-precision pressure regulator, and an integrated gas panel. Compared to current technology, the devices are ultra-small in size, thus minimizing dead volumes and gas contact surface areas. With wettable surfaces comprised of ceramic and silicon (or, silicon coated with Si/sub 3/N/sub 4/ or SiC), they are resistant to corrosion, and generate virtually no particles. The devices are created from modular components. The science and technology of these components will be detailed. The modules examined are: normally-open proportional valves; normally-closed, low leak-rate shut-off valves; critical orifices (to extract information of flow rate); flow models (to extract flow rate from pressure and temperature information); silicon-based pressure sensors; and, the precision ceramic-based packages which integrate these modules into useful devices for semiconductor processing. The work finishes with a detailed description of the low-flow mass flow controller.

Destroying the Myth of Vertical Integration in the Japanese Electronics Industry: Restructuring in the Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment Industry

CHON S. (1997) Destroying the myth of vertical integration in the Japanese electronics industry: restructuring in the semiconductor manufacturing equipment industry, Reg. Studies, 31, 25-39. Segments of the Japanese electronics industry's vertically integrated industrial structure are becoming more disintegrated and market dependent. This paper uses recent changes in the Japanese semiconductor equipment industry to examine what caused this disintegration in one of the most technologically advanced segments of the Japanese electronics industry. The findings suggest that, as the technological advances in the semiconductor equipment industry pushed the limits of the existing technology, the exclusive advantages that the Japanese DRAM producers had as a result of closely linking the know-how in DRAM manufacturing to equipment production were undermined by other economic changes in the industry. The factors affecting the structural changes towards vertical disintegration in the equipment industry include: (1) ...

A Technique For Measuring Slurry‐Flow Dynamics During Chemical ‐ Mechanical Polishing

AbstractChemical‐Mechanical Polishing (CMP) is one of the fastest growing market segments in the semiconductor equipment industry. One of the critical consumable in CMP is a specialized solution, or slurry, which contains both free abrasives and chemicals acting together to planarize a wafer. These chemically active slurries account for approximately one fifth of the total cost of polishing a wafer. Because of the cost and potential toxicity, there are both financial and environmental pressures to reduce the amount of slurry consumed during the CMP process. To accomplish this in a systematic manner we have developed a technique for quantifying slurry flow patterns during CMP which involves using fluorescent dyes to measure slurry mixing, temperature gradients and slurry aging during the polishing. An aqueous fluorescent solution with matching viscosity is used to model the slurry, a glass window models the wafer and a commercially available polisher provides the polishing pad/table rotating work surface. This talk will focus on the diagnostic technique used to measure the slurry behavior as well as some semi‐quantitative results on both the amount and uniformity of slurry entrained beneath the wafer as a function of pad topography, injection location and pad rotation rates.

THE ORGANIZATION OF INNOVATION IN THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN: NEOCLASSICAL AND RELATIONAL CONTRACTING*

ABSTRACTThis article discusses the role of intermediate governance structures between vertically related industries in the specific context of technological innovation. In the United States, relations between firms in vertically related industries correspond closely to the neoclassical contracting model, characterized by arms‐length, spot contracting on the open market. In Japan, inter‐firm relations are more likely to involve relational contracting, characterized by stable bonding mechanisms and a dense historical network of economic ties between the parties to the exchange. We focus upon the kinyu keiretsu type of relational contracting between firms of unequal size and power in vertically related industries, which is a special case of the more generally studied kigyo shudan, or inter‐market financial group. For illustrative purposes, we compare the contractual arrangements used to manage the development of new technology by 46 US and 27 Japanese semiconductor equipment firms. We conclude by speculating that the organization of innovation in the Japanese semiconductor equipment industry has accelerated their development of new technology and led to their extraordinarily rapid worldwide market penetration.