The president and CEO will be Richard Faubert of SpeedFam. Roger McDaniel, who held the post of IPEC's president and CEO, will become an outside member of the board. By bringing these two companies together we have the broadest base of equipment in the market today. Lyscio says IPEC's AvantGaard system and SpeedFam's Auriga tool are complementary products. IPEC has an orbital platform which uses an orbital motion and soft pallet to polish a wafer.
Orbital motion is the key.
SpeedFam's system uses a rotational method, and both of those have their inherent pluses. They feel it's a good thing. Meanwhile, Applied's 1996 polisher entry, the Mirra, has nibbled away at some of the share held by competitors like SpeedFam, IPEC, and Strasbaugh. Last October Strasbaugh itself introduced the Harmony cluster tool, a polisher for 300-mm pilot lines and CMP lab use, particularly research in new applications such as copper and dual damascene. Cabot's microelectronics materials division sells slurries to both IPEC and SpeedFam.