Eaton wins IBM, NASA pacts

Electronic News, April 27, 1992

BEVERLY, MASS. -- Eaton Corps.'s Semiconductor Equipment division has received orders for high-energy ion implanters from IBM and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in deals worth a total of about $10 million.

One model NV-1002 implanter will be shipped this year to IBM's East Fishkill, N.Y., production facility, with another following in 1993. Fishkill has an installed base of similar machines, said Robert Klimm, director of marketing, sales and service for Eaton. NASA's machine will ship this year.

"There is continuing interest in high-energy equipment," said Mr. Klimm. "There are some ways it can be used to enchance device performance, and to eliminate process steps in IC production. You can get rid of some step, like masking layers."

Unlike traditional high-current and medium-current implanters, which build up concentrations of dopants near the surface of the wafer being processed, high-energy machines can drive ions deep into the silicon while leaving the surface area relatively undoped. Peter Younger, general manager of theEaton division, noted that customers are using the machines on charged-coupled device (CCD) imaging devices, high-density memories, high-speed bipolar logic and programming of read-only memories (ROMs) for video games.

"It's starting to move out of R&D and into production," commented Mr. Klimm.

The NV-1002 is similar to Eaton's NV-20A high-current implanter, with the addition of a linear accelerator. List price is approximately $3.5 million.

Separately, EAton said it has received $10 million in orders for implanters and wafer track equipment from three semiconductor houses in China. Huajng/MMEI, the largest buyer, purchased two NV-10P high current implanters, three NV-6200A medium-current implanters and several System 6000XL photoreist processors. Eaton claims a 100 percent market share for 1991 implanter pruchases by Chinese manufacturers.

In another development, Eaton posted first-quarter earnings of $33 million, or 96 cents a share, as compared to a loss of $12 million last year, after a restructing charge. The year-ago-quarter net also reflect $2 million in earnings from subsequently discontinued operations.

During the last year's first-quarter the company took a pre-tax restructing charge of $39 million, the company noted. Without the restructing charge, Eaton's net from continuing operations would have been $11 million, or 33 cents a share, the company said.

Sales for the current quarter ended March 31, meanwhile, grew by 16 percent to $949 million, up from $818 million last year.

William Butler, Eaton chairman and chief executive said. "Our improved performance in the first quarter reflects the benefits of the restructings of the past two years, and continued strict discipline of expenses and inventory. The U.S. economy is recovering from the recession, and we are optimistic that our markets will continue to strengthen as the year progresses," he said.