EDN Asia: Novellus has opened an International Headquarters in Singapore. In what way would Singapore play a critical role for the company's business and growth?
Hill: Novellus first established its presence in Singapore in 1995 with a team of just 15 employees. Today, the company has more that 100 staff engaged in sales and customer support. We selected Singapore as the Company’s new international headquarters primarily because the country has a good educated workforce who are very diligent and have great work ethics. Also, 80 percent of our business is done in Asia, and it is important for Novellus to be closer to its Asian customers. Our goal was to get all of our business operations - such as receiving orders, finance – aligned with our customers in Asia enabling us to deal with them in the same time zone.
EDN Asia: How large an investment has Novellus made in Singapore?
Hill: Since 1995 our contribution to the local economy has been north of $60 million, and we are currently at a rate of over $10 million a year. We expect this rate to increase substantially as we move our operations focused on Asia from the US to Singapore.
How has Novellus addressed decreasing circuit geometries of advanced semiconductor devices?
Hill: Decreasing geometries of circuits is a way of life in semiconductors. When I took over 1993 our products were being shipped for micron applications. We’ve made a transition from a single product company to a multiple product company selling products at half-micron; to today we have products that extend down to 32nm.
EDN Asia: What are the current trends in the manufacture of semiconductors?
Hill: The overall semiconductor market is changing dramatically. Companies such as Texas Instruments and Sony have stopped their development at 45nm and beyond. This has significant ramifications for companies like Chartered Semiconductors and other foundries because engineers are not going to stop demanding the technology, and because they are no longer getting it in-house, there’s no longer the vertical integration of semiconductor companies. So what happens is that engineers are going to have to outsource their demands. In the short term we are going to see a tremendous growth in the foundries, and it is a tremendous opportunity for a company like Chartered to be able to capitalize on the fact that they can conglomerate circuit demand and therefore be a critical player in the overall production of semiconductors.
EDN Asia: What should a semiconductor designer know about the trends in semiconductor manufacturing?
Hill: The designer needs to be aware of what process he’s going to design, and whom he’s going to release that process to. He also needs to have the ability to improve the performance of his design and reduce cost. This means that he must be able to shrink it, go from 90nm to 65nm, and then to 45nm.
EDN Asia: Can you say something of Novellus market share for semiconductor equipment globally?
Hill: If we look at the capital equipment expenditure, we represent about seven percent globally. Within the markets we serve we have a much higher market share. For some of our products we have an 85 percent market share, while other products give us a single digit market share.
