Veeco is bullish
July 1st, 2011
Veeco Instruments Inc (VECO:US), one of the two dominant MOCVD reactor suppliers, is bullish.
The company recently estimated the total available market for MOCVD systems from 2011 through 2015 at greater than 5,000 reactors. General lighting market is definitely factored in.
MOCVD tool ownership by country (see the chart below) shows the expected rapid acceleration in investment in China.
Sapphire manufacturing capacity needs to follow.
Source: LEDs Magazin
Correcting figures
December 21, 2010
This is an interesting case: we spotted an error in one of our prefered and reliable sources of information – Digitimes. It concerns the demand and capacity in sapphire/LED manufacturing wich are discussed a lot these days. We decided it is worth publishing here.
Digitimes wrote:
Formosa Epitaxy’s Taiwan facilities are equipped with 56 MOCVD machines, capable of producing 12 million epitaxial wafers a month. By the end of 2011, monthly capacity should rise to 15-20 million wafers.
In 2011, MOCVD equipment in Taiwan and China will combine for 126 units, and the company’s projected capital expense will total NT$4-5 billion.
We asked to check the figures:
Please, check the figures on monthly capacity of an MOCVD machine.Indeed, Yole Development estimated Q4, 2010 global sapphire demand at 2.2mln mm/month (2′ equivalent)=less than 3mln wafers/month (2′ equivalent). After you, Formosa has 4 times global capacity?
Digitimes corrected:
Thanks for pointing it out. We made a mistake about the figures. The correct figures are: 120,000 wafers per month currently and 150,000-200,000 by the end of 2011.
Asia: an Eldorado for equipment manufacturers.
December 10, 2010
Driven by equipment manufacturers (38.7% of the total), Swiss exports to China surpass imports.
Countries with strong equipment manufacturing base, first of all Germany but also Switzerland, thrive on equipment exports to a booming China.
Dreams of finding a new Eldorado in China did not materialized for most of Western businessmen.
It looks likely, though, that for equipment manufacturers, China is indeed becoming a new Eldorado.
And the same is true for the rest of a booming South-East Asia.
Source: tsr.ch
Against the new Ukrainian tax code
November 30, 2010
Technology companies in Ukraine have no tax preferences whatsoever nor do they have government support of any kind.
The complexity of the Ukrainian corporate tax law is ranked number 3 in the world. Ukrainian businesses have to spend 270 times (!) more time on administration of taxes than businesses in the US. The World Bank in its report Doing Business 2011 ranked Ukraine at 145th place, i.e. amongst the least favorable for business nations. At the same level as Syria (144th) and Gambia (146).
Under a guidance from bureaucrats from the International Monetary Fund, Ukrainian bureaucrats prepared a new tax code. This new tax code is so bad that it can totally destroy small and medium size businesses in Ukraine and it can complicate life even more to larger businesses.
We join the citizen movement against.
Prices for sapphire substrates reached US$20-30 in the third quarter
October 4, 2010
Yvonne Yu, from DIGITIMES, on Monday 4 October 2010 pointed out falling margins for LED chipmakers in September 2010.
Amongst the reasons are increasing prices for components and notably prices for sapphire substrates:
Prices for sapphire substrates were about US$10-13 in the first quarter of 2010, started to increase in the second quarter and reached US$20-30 in the third quarter, the observers said, adding that the increases in component prices are expected to result in a 4-5 percentage points drop in the LED chipmakers’ third-quarter margins and the makers will need to maintain their profits by controlling cost and changing product mixes.
Source: digitimes.com
China: government subsidizes US$1.19-1.49 million of each MOCVD machine installation. Concerns about overheating in LED investments.
September 16, 2010
The key points:
- orders for MOCVD equipment, which is used in LED chip production, from China have reached 1,400-1,600. The Government becomes concerned about overheating.
- the government subsidizes 8-10 million yuan (US$1.19-1.49 million) of each MOCVD machine installation
P.E.: Veeco, one of the two dominant suppliers, averaged 2 million US$ sale price per MOCVD machine
- Taiwan-based LED companies, however, pointed out that LED chip production is a technology- and experience-intensive process. Heavy investments in capacity ramp do not necessarily translate to quality products that meet industry standards. Furthermore, with rapid capacity expansion, prices from low-end to mid-range products could fall substantially, which is another huge challenge.
Link to the full article by Siu Han, Taipei; Willie Teng, DIGITIMES
Siemens and bribery: America’s Department of Justice reckoned that Siemens paid $805m in backhanders between 2001 and 2007.
September 10, 2010
An article in The Economist magazine praises Siemens for positive changes of the last years.
The article mentions and illustrates with figures the scale of bribery that was a part of business practice at Siemens in the past.
In this regard it would be interesting to look at the problem from the angle of “who corrupted whom?” Was Siemens trying to seduce normally honest employees and executives of potential customers? Or had the practice of bribery developed as a need to outbid the palm-greasing of competitors as corrupted employees and executives of potential customers would not sing otherwise?
There are indications that bribery is still a factor in Asia and in other places. Equipment makers have to deal with this reality.
An extract from the article in The Economist and a link to the original article are below:
Underlying all this, Siemens was badly managed for a long time. Just how badly became clear between 2006 and 2008 when it was embroiled in a mammoth bribery scandal. By the end of it Siemens had paid $1.6 billion in fines for bribing officials and politicians around the world. Investigators found that paying backhanders was so ingrained that the company even had dedicated “cash desks” where employees could fill suitcases with banknotes that would be used to secure contracts.
Before 1999, when it was legal for German companies to bribe foreign officials, Siemens claimed tax deductions for what it termed “useful expenditure”. After this was outlawed, Siemens shifted its criminal activities underground, using front companies and middlemen to pay “commissions” on contracts. The practice was extensive and brazen. As much as $67m in crisp, clean cash was merrily packed into suitcases. America’s Department of Justice reckoned that Siemens paid $805m in backhanders between 2001 and 2007.
Corporate crime seems to have harmed the company rather than helped it. Managers who approved bribes by signing Post-it notes that could then be peeled off lost any sense of accountability. Salesmen, fixated on winning contracts at any cost, forgot how to step away from unprofitable deals. Despite all the palm-greasing, Siemens didn’t make much money.
Economist.com: Siemens. A giant awakens. Link to the original article.
Best Practices for Importing 3D Data into SolidWorks by Brian Zias
July 7, 2009
An excellent entry “…posted by Mechanical Engineer on Mon, Jun 15, 2009″ on the Alignex Mechanical Division Technical Blog
We have spent 40 minutes wondering in the labyrinths of the Solidworks web sites, where all paths to support lead to dead-ends of restricted access. Still, we were unable to find that place where we could read what is the best format to be imported to Solidworks software. Nor were we able to learn what formats Solidworks is able to import. The search of the site by keywords “import formats”, “formats” and similar would bring endless entries of supplementary software by partners but nothing from the product description or knowledge base. Our verdict: Solidworks gives a bad example of accessibility for a website and a bad example of managing access to information.
We turned to Google and from the first try our search brought an excellent and very recent article on the subject with a title with almost exactly wording as our search keywords: “best practices for importing to into solidworks”.
The article is so good and necessary for our work, that we copy the entire text here, not to loose anything.
Also, the Alignex Mechanical Division Technical Blog is in itself definitely a case of best practice in managing of a corporate blog of an engineering company. We put it on our “learn from the best practices” list.
Even with One Million SolidWorks licenses out there (Learn more here), many users find themselves dealing with imported data from time to time. This data usually comes to the designer in the format of IGES, STEP, Parasolid, or possibly native Pro/E, Inventor, and UG files. Fortunately, SolidWorks can import all of these data types, along with many others. Here are four tips for working with imported 3D data:
1. Get the right format
Is there a single-best format in which a user should request 3D CAD data? Yes, SolidWorks format of course! Seriously though, there are myriad formats out there. Some types are neutral, agreed-upon standards while some are proprietary and require licensing from a commercial entity. The best format depends on where the data is coming from.
Parasolid (.x_t or .x_b) is my usual recommendation, since SolidWorks is based on that kernel. Other software also licenses that technology, e.g. Unigraphics, SolidEdge, and MicroStation. Any software users with the ability to export parasolid should provide that format for import into SolidWorks. IGES and STEP files, both neutral formats, would be my second and third choices for data, respectively.
2. Say ‘Yes’ to Import Diagnostics
Any time SolidWorks opens a non-native file type, the software first creates a SolidWorks document. SolidWorks uses the ‘Default Templates’ system setting to determine which template to choose (or whether to prompt the user). The second thing to happen is the Import Diagnostics command is started:
Make it a habit to always answer ‘Yes’ to this question. It will analyze the geometric data, and then allow for automated repair if issues are detected. Most of the time, it will find a few faulty faces or surface gaps, and most of the time these entities are repaired with one click. On some poor-quality imported data, the user will have to clean up via surfacing anything that is left behind. Pay attention to whether the data is solid or surface bodies, or possibly a mix. To become a solid, a surface must usually be patched until it is water-tight.
Make it a habit to always answer ‘Yes’ to this question. It will analyze the geometric data, and then allow for automated repair if issues are detected. Most of the time, it will find a few faulty faces or surface gaps, and most of the time these entities are repaired with one click. On some poor-quality imported data, the user will have to clean up via surfacing anything that is left behind. Pay attention to whether the data is solid or surface bodies, or possibly a mix. To become a solid, a surface must usually be patched until it is water-tight.
3. Use FeatureWorks
Imported files contain only geometric data, not the history of how it was made. FeatureWorks is a tool that allows imported solids to be transformed into an intelligent feature tree. It reverses a “dumb” imported part with only one feature (the imported body) into a full feature history. An example would be this IGES file with no history after being opened:
FeatureWorks has a few different recognition modes. Fore simple geometries, the automatic mode is pretty much turnkey. Alternatively, a user can proceed through manual interaction with the module to point out geometry that needs to be a certain feature type. After running the automatic recognition, 15 seconds later we see a fully-defined, parametric, SolidWorks part.
A complete feature history is invaluable when it comes time for complex design changes or creating a detailed drawing (it will also fully define the absorbed sketches). It is not always necessary to reverse a part that far. One tip is to use FeatureWorks on a feature-by-feature basis. With the add-in enabled, users can right-click on a feature in the graphics area (e.g. a fillet face, or fastener hole) and ‘Edit Feature’ which will trigger background recognition of that specific geometry. This makes opening legacy data and making a few tweaks a painless process.
4. Get comfortable with Surfaces
All solids are really just surfaces in disguise. More precisely, solids are water-tight sets of surfaces that are ‘filled’ up with volume. At the surface level, you can manipulate data even without having a part history. An example is the Delete Face command. Try the option ‘delete and patch’ next time there’s some feature (fillet, small hole) that you need to remove, or erase and re-create. Also tools such as Move Face and Replace Face come in handy to resize or manipulate imported geometry. As a final note: When you are stuck with a poor-quality imported surface and start to question how it can be turned into a solid, surfaces are the answer.
My hope is that these few tips help you transitioning legacy data from another CAD tool to SolidWorks easier and/or improve working with others who do not have the benefit of modeling in SolidWorks. If you continue to have issues, don’t hesitate contacting your SolidWorks VAR Service Center. That’s one of the many great reasons you pay for your Subscription renewal.
Tags: SolidWorks, FeatureWorks, Import 3D Data
Alternative Dispute Resolution
May 30, 2009
Good on-line resources on Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) on the site of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). Good job.
Positive and negative aspects of using Arbitration as a way to resolve contractual disputes retained our attention.
In the video lecture by Ms. Catherine Kessedjian, an law professor in Paris and New York, an arbitrator and an experienced law professional, there are a lot of instructive points.
Some are quite counter intuitive. Our selection for the negative aspects:
- The arbitral procedure is NOT shorter than in a national court.
- The arbitral procedure is A LOT MORE EXPENSIVE than a national court. Notably, because in the national procedure the parties do not pay the judge. Also, the workload and the cost of the legal advisers is much higher since the Arbitrator “knows nothing”, unlike a national judge.
- A mistake with the choice of the arbitrator is possible and can be fatal: the appointed arbitrator may not understand the subject. Especially so, in the ad hoc arbitration.
- An arbitration court can not impose to the 3rd parties: for instance, can not order to
freeze a bank account. A national court can.