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Toller Bericht von Kathy zum OH auf ihrer Seite: http://www.investortoinvestor.com/dcforum/cgi-bin/dcboard.cg… >>>>> Nanopierce Card Technologies GmbH Open House Presentation September 20, 2001 - Part 1 Dr. Michael Wernle, President and CEO of Nanopierce Card Technologies GmbH opened the day’s presentations by introducing Paul Metzinger, President and CEO of Nanopierce Technologies, Inc., parent company to Nanopierce Card Technologies, GmbH. Paul started his comments by expressing his gratitude to the people of Germany, as well as the people in the rest of the world, for the support shown to America after the World Trade Center tragedy. (Note that it was revealed to a few of us outside of the Open House, that Paul Metzinger, Stan Richards, Herb Neuhaus and a few others I will not name here were scheduled to have an appointment in the World Trade Center on the day of the attacks, but did not go because one person they were meeting with was delayed by a day. We were all very shocked and relieved to hear that, so you can understand that Paul was particularly moved by the tragedy.) He then gave a brief breakdown on the company, inlcuding extending thanks to the investment bankers who have been working so diligently to help the parent company achieve adequate financing to fulfill the business goals of the entire company. He made a further comment away from his presentation that the company has no financial worries, that certain parties were arranging all of the financing necessary as needed and that they would be financing each segment of Nanopierce business individually as the need arose. This would allow for companies who are interested in particular segments to invest only in those segments that they are interested in, so that each segment could eventually be a stand alone company under the Nanopierce umbrella. He said that the financing future of Nanopierce is assured because of the efforts of the investment bankers working with Nanopierce and that the company has a lot of financial strength with continuing availability of funding going forward. Paul made a point of stating that Nanopierce is honored to have a fine subsidiary in Germany and gave full credit to Dr. Wernle for assembling a very talented team, which he said would be a very large part of the success of Nanopierce and its NCS technology. He said that he has always been convinced that with the proper guidance, talent and financing, NCS could radically change the entire electronic connections industry and that he also believes that Nanopierce is starting to demonstrate that to the entire electronics world. He said that a very important part of that demonstration was going to occurr at the Open House. Paul said that everyone at Nanopierce were fully ready, willing and able to answer any and all questions on any aspect of Nanopierce’s business on any level, opening the door to discussion during the various breaks between presentations. Paul then turned the microphone over to Dr. Wernle who spoke about the technology of Nanopierce in a more technical indepth presentation. He also spoke about the strong demand for new technologies in the electronic market and that Nanopierce intends to use the company’s intellectual property to build up the company. He spoke briefly about the structure of Nanopierce and the recent accomplishments including the applications and uses for Nanopierce Connection System (NCS). Activities related to Colorado Springs and Munich including the company’s outlook over the next few months using slides to demonstrate: The Basic Facts * NanoPierce Technologies owns a revolutionary, enabling, and patented technology used to connect electrical components * Microscopic hard particles (diamond) coated with metal work like “conductive sandpaper” * Every electrical device requires connections * Today’s electronics industry needs completely new connection approaches to meet lower target costs. Today’s Structure of NanoPierce (with photos of facilities and bar chart) * Denver (4) ✓ Headquarters ✓ Financing and Accounting ✓ Investor Relations * Colorado Springs (9) ✓ Basic Process Development for NCS/WaferPierce ✓ WaferPierce Service (Manufacturing) ✓ Intellectual Property Management ✓ Sales & Marketing - US * Munich (9) ✓Application Development : Flip Chip, LED,. . . . . ✓Sales & Marketing - Europe and Asia /Pacific ✓ Business Development NCS - An Update NCS uses small hard (diamond) particles applied to the surface coated with any metal, nickel for example, which transforms into a force concentrator whereby you apply pressure and have a concentration of forces at the tip. This is not sufficient in itself for bonding or contacting, so for that reason it requires several particles arriving at the surface that look like sandpaper. After these particles have been applied to a surface, there is bonding in several places for electrical connection. This process can be used for a variety of surfaces such as PCBs (printed circuit boards), in the assembly of passive elements on a PCB to replace welding and soldering technologies, particularly now that companies are trying to avoid the use of lead in manufacturing. Another opportunity is application in terms of improving conductivity in electrical appliances and component tests. A third application, and the one NanoPierce believes to be the most promising, is direct application to semiconductor wafers, or WaferPierce, in order to find a new approach and to show how small semiconductor chips can be produced and mounted on flexible substrates and carriers. Semiconductor assembly and packaging: The idea is to use the chip which comes in wafer shape and to put it into the housing. Wire bonding is the classical method which means that it is simply glued then contact is established through smaller wires. It is a well established technologyk however it comes with some disadvantages, namely the space requirement and that it is fairly expensive with the increase of connections. In some industries Dr. Wernle sees the demand to introduce packaging processes with a smaller footprint, which means the chip should only occupy the space on the PCB that it has itself. This step was pointed to in the 60`s by IBM with the three-fold process, which means that the chip is being “flipped” or turned around, so to speak and mounted with the active side down onto the PCB. This is why it is called flip chip technology. In the past it was used with the three-fold process using welding and soldering. Nowadays you can use adhesives. NanoPierce believes that WaferPierce is a most interesting alternative for that process. How does that work? The semiconductor wafer is now manufactured and produced to apply individual NanoPierce contacts to the wafer. Basically the wafer is submerged into the respective chemical baths so that NCS is coated on all of the contact pads on the entire wafer at one time. Then you separate the wafer into individual dies which have to be mounted onto the substrate. NanoPierce is able to work with a number of different substrates, such as paper, PET, PVC, FR4, etc. The NanoPierce process is very robust and can contract not only copper and aluminum, but a number of conductive links which gives NCS a flexibility not found in any other processes. It can be used with any glue, including that which is available at the local supermarket, then you insert the die. So the NCS contacts pierce into the connections and account for the connectivity and conductivity. How you get the contact onto the wafer is a bit more tricky, but the application is simple an low cost. Only recently, NanoPierce hit a milestone where it has been able to account for its first good micrograph, so you can imagine how complicated the process has been at the beginning. (I heard that a few weeks before the Open House, Nanopierce in Colorado Springs finally dipped their first whole wafer in the electroless process and that it was coated perfectly across all contact pads on the entire wafer. I believe this to be the micrograph referenced by Dr. Wernle.) He showed a picture of a silicon die with varying degrees of up to 1000% magnification. This consisted of a silicon die and a nickel plated surface which is embedded with the particles and which pierces into the copper bed. He said this is what WaferPierce is all about and it works too! Where can we apply this technology? WaferPierce - in Chip Modules: * Applications: ✓ Phone Cards ✓ Health Cards ✓Finance Cards (Visa Cash, ...) ✓ GSM/UMTS Cards * Market Volume: ✓1.5 billion units 2000 ✓1.9 billion units 2001 ✓Average annual growth rate greater than 25% In smartcard chip modules and telephone cards you need to keep in mind that last year there were 1.5 billion parts being produced and at one point this year there were 1.9 billion units being produced. It is an up and coming market. The producers of these chip modules are looking desparately for opportunities to reduce the cost for the individual units and modules. Imagine 10 million units including chip and everything cost 25 pfennigs (10 to 12 cents) per day, so if you only save one pfennig (1/4 to ½ a cent) at the manufacturing level it accounts for a fortune. WaferPierce - LED *Applications ✓ Traffic Lights ✓ Automotive Tail Lights ✓Displays ✓ Power Lights * Market Volume ✓Tokio - 700 MW Power Consumption for Traffic Signals ✓50 Million Cars ✓ Greater that 100 Billion Dies (Chips) used in 2000 ✓ . . . Another application is for LEDs (light emitting diodes) that NanoPierce has become involved with due to Mr. Sieg of Elcos who has really inspired them. LEDs are also on the rise for a number of applications such as traffic lights, automotive tail lights, to illuminate and replace power lights. An LED may not replace the ordinary bulb, but think about a Hologen lamp. In order to develop those in the industry there is a whole variety of applications in that sector. Market values are enormous and there is a great deal of pressure to do something to reduce costs and power consumption. When illuminating signs and traffic signal lights it takes 700 megawatts of electrical power consumption which is the output of a medium sized power plant. By using LED technology, thre could be great savings, especially due to the prolonged life of the individual diodes. It is very difficult to get market volume figures but it is estimated that there were at least 200 billion dies used in 2000 and it is a developing market on the rise. WaferPierce - Smart Inlays * Replacement of Barcode Labels ✓ Express Mail Service ✓ Luggage Tracking ✓ Libraries ✓Article Surveillance * Market Volume ✓ Barcode Labels in four major applications ✓ 1999 6.5 Billion ✓This volume has to be replaced year by year A new application and market will be smart inlays which is a product for smart labels and to be used as a substitute for bar codes such as in express mail service or the identification of luggage. This is, of course, an issue being much discussed these days in light of the recent (terrorist) activities, how to identify luggage going onto airplanes.Also fingerprint identification. This is a very important issue which works by means of sensors on a card such as that developed by Siemens Infineon. A lot of these things have to be combined with an electrical connector and labels in monitoring of the protection against theft. This is a market of hundreds of millions a year. We need to be perfectly clear about one thing. You can’t simply mount such a label and then use it for a few years. There are consumer goods. The label is used for one or two days maximum and then it is thrown out. In these applications back in 1999, 6.5 billion components were used. There is expected to be a dramatic increase in this market segment going forward. This can also be seen by the fact that semiconductor companies that have some sort of “know how” in this field have started to offer these technologies. Everyone would like to participate in this business. These are just a few applications, but the applications are continuing to expand into other areas. WaferPierce can be used for any chips that have a low connection size where you have a number of packaging units. For instance in the driver circuits for LDCs. This is very important. Also in flash memories for PCs. So what has been done in Colorado Springs to launch this product on the market? This was introduced last year at the Colorado Springs Open House as an electroplating process. They have exploited that process and by means of a new process they have now managed to apply contacts in WaferPierce. The clean room being built should be completed in one to two weeks and they have also come up with samples of the wafers which can now be provided to customers. What has been done in Munich? NanoPierce has tried to increase their sales and marketing activities in their market segment. They have developed the product and can now start selling it. They have expanded their cooperations. They have developed the flip chip process in relation to WaferPierce and are focusing on smart inlays for smart labels and smart card chip modules. They have designed their test wafer which Fraunhofer Institute manufactured for them. Colorado Springs also applied the contacts and produced flip chip samples. Dr. Wernle showed a slide of a chart showing the design of a wafer described as a very simple structure and with various connections used to show the industrial community how it works in order to gain their confidence and trust. Over the past two years NanoPierce has developed a close relationship with their cooperation partners shown on a slide to be Elcos, Simotec, Multitape and Orga with space left open for new cooperations under discussion to be added to the list. Dr. Wernle ended his presentation here and introduced Hans Ulrich Voller to speak on the basic principals of flip chip technologies. This presentation will be the beginning of Part 2 coming up next. >>>>>> Hold NPCT and prosper Jetsia |
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| aus der Diskussion: | NPCT Nanopierce Technologies WKN 916132 Thread V |
| Autor (Datum des Eintrages): | jetsia dax (27.09.01 20:37:15) |
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