Mitsubishi Chemical to Bolster Technology Platform Through Acquisition of American Organic and Inorganic Hybrid Chemicals Manufacturer Gelest

TOKYO, NEW YORK and MORRISVILLE, Pa., April 30, 2020 –Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (MCC; Head office:Tokyo, Japan; President: Masayuki Waga) announced today that its subsidiary Mitsubishi Chemical America, Inc.(MCA; Head office: New York, the United States; President: Steve Yurich)has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of Gelest Intermediate Holdings, Inc., the parent of Gelest, Inc. (Gelest; Head office: Pennsylvania, the United States; Chairman and CTO: Barry Arkles, CEO: Ken Gayer)and a portfolio company of New Mountain Capital, LLC. (NMC; Head office: New York, the United States). 

 

 

Completion of the transaction is expected in 2020, pending customary regulatory review and approval. Gelest is an American innovator, manufacturer, and supplier of silicones, organosilanes, metal-organics, and specialty monomers for advanced technology end markets including medical devices, life sciences, microelectronics, and personal care. Gelest helps customers succeed by assisting them to develop and supply the chemistry to solve their most challenging materials science problems and enable their new product technology.“We are excited to acquire Gelestas its business fits well within MCC’s long-term strategy,” said Steve Yurich, President of MCA. “Since becoming familiar with Gelest, we have recognized the tremendous capabilities in research and development and production that help create its outstanding position with key customers. Furthermore, MCC’s operating resources and customer network will enhance the ability to bring Gelest’s technologies to market and accelerate the development of new customer solutions to drive advances in digital social infrastructure, vision care, and other life-sciences applications. 

 

We look forward to working alongside the team at Gelest to drive the continued growth of the company.”“We are extremely proud of the efforts of everyone who has contributed to make Gelest the Company that it is today, with world-class technology and supply capabilities, made possible by the industry-leading team we have built and support from NMC for our strategic investment programs. This has made Gelest an extremely valuable partner to customers around the world,” said Barry Arkles, Chairman and CTO of Gelest. 

 

Ken Gayer, CEO of Gelest, added, “Weare excited to join MCC during our next stage of growth. MCC’s breadth and depth in the advanced materials sector will allow Gelest to create even more value for our customers and opportunities for our employees

4th CMC Conference Enabled Critical Information and Connections

Fab materials event in Albany, New York area April 25-26 featured GlobalFoundries keynote and Intel and TI presentations. Plan now for the 2020 April 23-24 event in Hillsboro, Oregon. 

(SAN DIEGO (PRWEB) May 07, 2019) Over 150 leading executives and managers within the semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem gathered on April 25th and 26th in the Albany area of New York state for an important event on fabrication (fab) materials. The fourth-annual Critical Materials Council (CMC) Conference, produced by TECHCET, included topical presentations, a fab tour, exhibits by specialty materials suppliers, and networking roundtable discussions to learn about best-practices in a pre-competitive environment. Folks who missed attending the event this year can register to access the posted presentations for a nominal fee at https://cmcfabs.org/cmc-conference-2019/.

The event opened again, as in each of the prior three years, on an extremely strong business and technology keynote address by an executive from one of the CMC Fab member companies. The 2019 CMC Conference keynote was given by Dr. John Pellerin, Deputy CTO and VP of Worldwide R&D, GlobalFoundries. Pellerin talked about how demand for new high-volume manufacturing (HVM) semiconductor devices over the next few years will drive needs for increased numbers of new specialty materials as well as volumes of existing materials in his presentation on "Materials Challenges & Opportunities in Differentiated Technologies."

In the first session of the event covering global supply-chain issues of economics and regulations, G. Dan Hutcheson, CEO of VLSI Research, presented on "Slowdown: When did it start? What drove it? And When will the recovery come?" Hutcheson showed data from leading economic indicators that the recent decline in global semiconductor fab industry revenues due to memory chip prices may have already turned around.

TECHCET Sr. Analysts Dr. Jonas Sundqvist and Terry Francis presented updated information on demand drivers and forecasts for ALD/CVD precursors and Rare Earths, respectively. Sundqvist--also leader of the Thin Film Technologies Group at Fraunhofer IKTS--focused on how new 3D memory and logic chips demand more deposition precursors such that chemical volume growth will outpace that of silicon wafers, shown in the Figure. Francis showed how "Rare Earth" elements are not so rare at the elemental level, but complex dynamics between mining and refining and capitalism have led to a situation where mainland China currently controls most of the market for elements such as lanthanum (used in advanced ICs to create CMOS logic gates). Deep dives into all such materials matters are found in the TECHCET Critical Materials Reports (CMR), and you can find all of them online at https://techcet.com/shop/. 

Global semiconductor silicon quarterly wafer shipments 2015-2019 in millions of square inches (MSI). (Source: TECHCET)

The 2020 spring CMC Conference is scheduled for April 24-25 in Hillsboro, Oregon. The CMC Fab members and Associate members will again gather for two days of private face-to-face meetings before attending the public CMC Conference.

In addition to the annual spring CMC Conference in the US, there is also an annual fall CMC Seminar in Asia. The 2019 CMC Seminar will be held on October 17 in Taoyuan, Taiwan. For more information on CMC events see https://techcet.com/cmc-events/.

About CMC:
The Critical Materials Council (CMC) of Semiconductor Fabricators (CMCFabs.org) is a membership-based organization that works to anticipate and solve critical materials issues in a pre-competitive environment. The CMC is a business unit of TECHCET, and includes materials supplier Associate Members.

About TECHCET:
TECHCET CA LLC is an advisory services firm focused on process materials supply-chains, electronic materials business, and materials market analysis for the semiconductor, display, solar/PV, and LED industries. Since 2000, the company has been responsible for producing the SEMATECH Critical Material Reports™, covering silicon wafers, semiconductor gases, wet chemicals, CMP consumables, Photoresists, and ALD/CVD Precursors. For additional information about reports, market briefings, CMC membership, or custom consulting please contact info(at)cmcfabs(dot)org, +1-480-332-8336, or go to http://www.techcet.com or http://www.cmcfabs.org.

Versum Materials - Air Products Materials Spin-Off set for growth

Here is an interview and video with Air Products soon-to-be chief executive, Guillermo Novo who will lead the spin-off Materials Divisioan of Air Products named Versum Materials.

Versum Materials will have an estimated global workforce of about 3,300 at 24 plants, including more than 500 employees locally.

 

 

"At $2.1 billion [in annual sales] we'll be one of the larger chemical-materials players in the industry. We're going to be one of the more profitable ones. So our goal has to be growth"

Says Guillermo Novo who has been with Air Products since 2012 previously with Rohm and Haas and later Dow Chemical Co.

When it comes to ALD and CVD, Air Products is very strong in silicon precursors and maybe not so much in high-k. It will be interesting to see if they will now put more effort in developing metal precursors for the fast growing market in metal ALD precursors like e.g. source/drain contacts, BEOL applications such barrier/seed, copper cap and alternatives metallization metals. For sure also another fast growing market is silicon precursors used for liners and spacer applications such as multiple patterning.

Check out the interview here: http://www.mcall.com/business/mc-air-products-executive-profile-20151129-story.html

Here is the original press release from Air Products about a month ago: http://www.airproducts.com/Company/news-center/2015/11/1105-versum-materials-is-selected-name-for-materials-technologies-business-spin-off-of-air-products.aspx

The magic formula in formulation chemistry

Here is an article in Chemistry World about formulation chemistry in the UK. It has some interesting points that apply for all of you developing ALD chemistries and maybe also ALD for micro-encapsulation like in the story on Nanexa a some weeks ago (here). It is written by Simon Rushworth whom you might know from Epichem, he was later the lead for high value manufacturing at the UK Knowledge Transfer Network and is now lead for collaborative R&D at Epivalence

The full article can be found here: Flexible, faster formulation

The magic formula

Formulation chemistry is an important area where consumer demand for new and improved products, available on ever-shortening timescales, is driving the decisions multinational companies make about where and how to invest in production assets. The UK government recently recognised this with a £20 million investment in a national formulation centre.

One of the most valuable goals for formulation is minimising the amount of chemical required to give a desired result. This is about more than just enhancing the efficacy of the active ingredients; it is about directing where those ingredients are delivered. Reducing the amount of chemical gives a better product, improves sustainability, supports mass customisation and reduces the cost.

In this regard, microencapsulation has received a lot of attention recently. It was initially developed for the agrichemical sector to deliver pesticides efficiently while avoiding harmful exposure, but it became a way to improve the performance of existing pesticides at a time when the regulatory climate was, in effect, preventing new pesticide development. Later, triggers were built in to break down the microcapsule walls using light, or to break them down using basic or acidic conditions, depending on the application. These advances are now spreading to pharmaceuticals, fragrances, textiles and many other sectors - the same technology could allow, for example, anticancer drugs to be selectively released in cancer cells.

Selective encapsulation is scientifically very challenging, but high-tech spin-out companies such as Aqdotare developing technologies with the potential to make huge changes to manufacturing. Aqdot’s technology won support from Innovate UK, via its 2013 formulation competition, and was then recognised by the Royal Society of Chemistry with an Emerging Technologies award in 2014.

Air Products Executive Calls for Collaboration to Maintain Pace of Innovation in Semiconductor Industry

Materials Suppliers and OEMs Need to Work Together to Develop Next Generation Materials

Press Release: True collaboration between material suppliers, OEMs and semiconductor manufacturers is necessary to develop solutions needed to maintain the pace of innovation in the global semiconductor industry. That was the message from Ed Shober, vice president Advanced Materials and Delivery Systems for Air Products (NYSE: APD) who recently spoke at SEMICON Korea's Executive Forum.

 

 

 

For years, materials have played a critical role in the scaling of IC devices. Looking ahead, as device geometries continue to shrink, materials will play an increasingly more critical role in semiconductor manufacturer's success. The move to 3-D structures such as FinFETS and Vertical NAND have created additional material processing steps that require chemical mechanical planarization (CMP), etching and atomic layer deposition to coat and fill structures.

 

"This increasing need for new materials is taxing all of us along the development supply chain," said Shober. "New materials are needed, they must be integrated and the result must not impact cost per wafer, not increase capital cost, not impact yield but must enable high throughput."

 

Materials suppliers have generally assumed the lion's share of the development costs of new materials. These include discovery, applications testing, scaling to manufacture, packaging and analytical, safe and reliable shipping and support at the customer's site. All without the promise of a market and with the risk of materials being quickly commoditized.

 

"We as material suppliers, because of the importance materials are playing in scaling, have reached a critical fork in the road," said Shober. "We can continue down the road we know which will most likely not result in a suitable return on investment or we can choose the road that many have spoken about yet not many have chosen—strategic partnerships. True collaboration can address the problems at hand and develop solutions which enable everyone to share in the success."

 

Device scaling has enabled affordability and far-reaching technologies that has improved countless lives. To continue to make these improvements possible, the pace of innovation must be maintained.

"This requires genuine and close collaboration with a shared vision, so all members of the team know what is required, when it is needed and the economics for the same," noted Shober.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/1760077#ixzz2uSz15b1t