BUILDING ON THE PAST, READY FOR THE FUTURE: - MEMC

1990
Tim Berners-Lee
creates the world
Wide Web/Internet
protocol (HTTP)
and www language
(HTML).
1991
Eight-inch wafers go
into production at
MEMC’s joint venture
in Cheonan, South
Korea.
1993
The global
semiconductor
equipment market
exceeds $10 billion in
sales for the first time.
1994
MEMC’s joint venture,
Taisil Electronic
Materials, is located in
Hsinchu, Taiwan.
1995
MEMC Southwest, a
joint venture with
Texas Instruments,
is established in
Sherman, Texas, to
produce six-inch
wafers.
1996
Stan Myers, former
president and CEO
of Siltec and one of
MEMC’s “Pioneers,” is
appointed president
of SEMI.
1997
MEMC St. Peters
begins commercial
production of 300mm
wafers.
1999
MEMC introduces
three new products:
52 Optia, Aegis, and MDZ.
The Pentium processor
is produced.
MEMC trades on the New
York Stock Exchange as an
Initial Public Offering under
the stock symbol “WFR.”
MEMC secures base
patents on Perfect
Silicon–brand wafers.
MEMC Taisil plant 300mm opening ceremony, Hsinchu,
Taiwan.
silicon market by the year 2000, and several
expansions reflected those projections.
The joint venture plant in Cheonan, Korea,
completed an expansion that increased
its capacity to more than three hundred
thousand 200mm wafers per month.
JoInt venture—taIwan
In 1994, MEMC entered into a joint
venture with China Steel Corporation,
China Development Industrial Bank, and
Chiao Tung Bank. The company formed
as a result of this joint venture was named
Taisil Electronic Materials Corporation.
The manufacturing facility was located
in Hsinchu, a medium-sized city located
about an hour south of Taiwan’s capital city
of Taipei. Referred to as Taiwan’s “Silicon
Valley,” the Hsinchu location gave the Taisil
plant back-door access to many of MEMC’s
Taiwanese customers. Tommy L. Cadwell,
MEMC’s president of Asian Operations at
the time, said that investment in the plant
was expected to exceed $150 million. Taisil
was Taiwan’s first large-diameter advanced
silicon wafer producer. Its capacity upon
its opening was eighty-five thousand
wafers per month, but expansions quickly
brought its capacity to its peak volume of
three hundred thousand 200mm wafers per
month.