
The power shortages affecting polysilicon producers in Japan has already
had a positive impact on business at Siltronic, a division of Wacker
Chemie. In the first quarter, Siltronic posted sales of €280.2 million,
compared to €219.1 million in the same period a year ago, an increase of
28%.
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Inspection and re-qualifying of production equipment and systems is
ongoing at MEMC’s wafer plant in Utsunomiya, Japan. Improvements in
power supply have led to an unspecified amount of 300mm production just
over a month since the largest earthquake to hit Japan occurred on March
11. MEMC noted that it expected to return to full 300mm wafer
production by the middle of May, 2011.
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The Semiconductor materials market revenues totalled US$43.55 billion in
2010, up 25% compared to 2009, according to the latest report for SEMI.
Record device shipments were achieved, surpassing the previous high of
US$42.67 billion set in 2007.
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Polysilicon and wafer producer, SUMCO Corporation said that following
the earthquake, the operations of the Yonezawa Plant (Yonezawa,
Yamagata) had been suspended. SUMCO noted that none of the workers at
the plant suffered injury.
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A key collaboration has been formed between DuPont Microcircuit
Materials and Holst Centre that will focus research on printed
electronic structures on flexible substrates for flexible display, RFID,
lighting, biomedical and Organic Photovoltaic (OPV) markets.
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Silicon wafer shipments as expected recovered strongly in 2010 as fab
utilization rates increased and the industry posted strong growth for
the year. According to the SEMI Silicon Manufacturers Group (SMG),
worldwide silicon wafer area shipments increased by 40% last year with
shipments equal to 9,370 million square inches (MSI), a new record high.
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MEMC saw semiconductor wafer sales increase 26% last year on the back of
market share gains, industry recovery and higher wafer pricing. Net
sales for the fourth quarter were US$262.6 million in the sector and
US$850.1 million overall. Segment operating profit was US$25.6 million,
compared to US$26.2 million in the third quarter, and a loss of $9.6
million in the prior year quarter.
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Having been awarded the Defense Production Act Title III gallium nitride
(GaN) manufacturing development contract, TriQuint Semiconductor will
be supplied GaN based wafers from IQE. The programme is expected to
conclude in 2013.
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Sigma-Aldrich through its Aldrich Materials Science business, said it
was distributing Nanosys-created silicon nanowires to the global
scientific research community. According to Sigma-Aldrich the
fabrication of nanowires is challenging, so the supply deal is intended
to further foster the development of a variety of new high-technology
applications that can continue to open up exciting end product markets.
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Solar and semiconductor start-up Solar Semi Engineering (SSE) has completed the acquisition of the business and assets of Edwards’ Chemical Management Europe (CME) division. The deal, the cost of which was not disclosed, will see SSE continue the marketing of Edwards’ CME products along with its own wet process equipment to the solar and semiconductor manufacturing industries.
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