Mergers & acquisitions
Hynix Semiconductor has signed a business transfer agreement of its system IC division with System Semiconductor. Hynix' board approved the sale of the system IC division earlier this month.
Citigroup Venture Capital Equity Partners and CVC Asia Pacific founded System Semiconductor in Korea to take over the business. The sale of Hynix' system IC division will be completed after going through necessary procedures such as an extraordinary shareholders' meeting. Hynix plans to focus resources on semiconductor memory and its projects in China.
Applied Materials has acquired all of the outstanding stock of Torrex for an undisclosed cash amount. Torrex' FlexStar system is used at several sites where it has demonstrated advantages over traditional hot wall furnaces for atomic layer deposition (ALD) and low pressure chemical vapour deposition (LPCVD) applications on both 200mm and 300mm wafers. Torrex' systems can process up to 50 wafers at a time in a stacked single-wafer environment. The acquired company was founded in 1991.
Tegal has closed its acquisition of First Derivative Systems, a developer of physical vapour deposition (PVD) systems for 300mm applications. Tegal announced a definitive agreement to make the acquisition on April 29, 2004. Tegal purchased substantially all of the assets of FDSI for 1.4mn shares of common stock and approximately $200,000 in assumed liabilities. In addition, Tegal entered into employment agreements with key FDSI personnel.
First Derivative Systems was founded in 1999 as a spin-off of Sputtered Films, which itself was acquired by Tegal in August 2002. FDSI has developed a high-throughput, low cost-of-ownership PVD system with a highly differentiated technology for leading edge memory and logic device production.
ChipPAC has changed the previously announced record date for its special meeting of stockholders to vote on the proposal to merge ChipPAC and ST Assembly Test Services (STATS). This move entitles stockholders of record at the close of business on June 16, 2004 (rather than the previously announced June 4, 2004) to notice of the special meeting and to vote on the proposal. The date of the special meeting is expected to be scheduled for July 2004.
Mitsubishi Electric and Toshiba have agreed in principle to transfer a majority of Toshiba's high capacity power module business, which accounts for a small portion of its power transistor business, over to Mitsubishi Electric. The business transfer will include product development, design, manufacturing and the marketing of high capacity power module products, but will not include products for automotive use, high voltage modules1or other related products. Discussions about the exact details of the business transfer are ongoing. A final agreement is expected by October 1, 2004.
