ACADEMIA

FREMONT, CA -- ACM Research, Inc., which recently announced new semiconductor production technology that enables the use of copper interconnects for integrated circuits with line widths down to 0.035 micron, announced today that it has completed second round financing totaling US$5.3 million. The largest single investment of $3 million was made by Sycamore Ventures, San Francisco, California. Richard Clayton, a partner at Sycamore Ventures, has been elected to the ACM board of directors. David Wang, co-founder and CEO of ACM, said the balance of the $5.3 million came from individual private investors, including Phil Downing, former vice president of corporate technology at Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD). According to Downing, who serves on ACM's technical advisory board, ACM offers the best solution to plating and polishing of copper film integrated with low K and Ultra Low K dielectrics for extremely fine geometries. Downing commented, "ACM's copper plating and polishing technology is really the best of both worlds; it offers highly localized control on the wafer without sacrificing high throughput." In October 2000, ACM announced two new production processes developed over the last three years with two prototype production tools, the Ultra ECP(TM) for Electro Copper Plating and the Ultra SFP(TM) for Stress Free Polishing of copper with low K and ultra low K dielectrics integration. "The results we achieved on wafer runs for key customers have proven our concepts and required ACM to secure new funding to bring the products to market;" said Dr. Wang. "Not easy at a time when the investment community is extremely cautious about financing semiconductor equipment companies. However, the reception of our new process concepts by the semiconductor industry and the trade press gave our investment partners the confidence they needed." In announcing the investment, Sycamore's Richard Clayton said, "Despite the current investment climate, knowledgeable investors are focusing on new technologies needed by the semiconductor industry to keep pace with the industry roadmap. The advances in the speed and power made possible by replacing traditional aluminum interconnects with copper is an area of major focus and we are very impressed with ACM's solutions for depositing and polishing copper on the wafer, especially with advanced low-K requirements." Dr. Wang added that the new funding would enable ACM to bring production-ready versions of both systems to market in a short time because of the company's high reliance on outsourcing key manufacturing steps to strategic partners.