ASMI gains last piece of BEOL solution
The purchase will be made with a combination of cash, ASMI common shares and additional variable cash payments over the next five-years. The value of the transaction at the closing, expected in May, is $9mn of which slightly over $5mn will be in common stock. Additionally, ASMI will pay up to $9mn million in cash over the next five years depending upon the achievement of performance targets. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals customary for this type of transaction in South Korea.
Arthur del Prado, president and CEO of ASM International, comments: "This acquisition represents ASM’s second and final step in the integration of major technologies in its third generation interconnect back-end-of-line (BEOL) product offering. The melding of ASMI and Genitech’s complementary technologies accelerates the development of copper barrier and seed, and copper filling capabilities."
Genitech’s is a supplier of plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD) for metal and dielectric deposition and Superfill CVD, a catalytic enhanced metal organic CVD process for copper deposition.
In 2001, ASMI and Genitech agreed that ASMI would offer Genitech’s PEALD and Superfill CVD products in its next generation copper interconnect solution, called Third Generation Interconnect, based on ASM’s Aurora low-k materials. NuTool’s ECMD, copper deposition and planarisation process tool, is also available under the solution. On March 2, 2004, ASM International also announced its intention to acquire NuTool in a stock transaction.
Del Prado adds: "The use of plasma in ALD not only speeds up the deposition rate, making the process more economical than ALD, it also improves the quality of certain films deposited at lower temperatures as compared to ALD. Furthermore, we expect that PEALD and ALD will serve complementary markets."
Genitech has 20 issued and 64 filed patents, principally in the area of PEALD and the Superfill CVD process.