Ibis Technology Inc, the Danvers, Massachusetts-based Separation by Implanted Oxygen SIMOX wafer chip specialist, is the company behind some of the technology IBM Corp needs to implement its silicon-on-insulator project, announced last week (CI No 3,466). IBM said the technique could help it push chip operating speeds by up to 30% with a factor three drop in power consumption and only a 10% price hike. Share in Ibis rose 38% on Monday and have continued to rise since. It’s welcome good news for a company that has been turning in a series of losses over the last three years and last year saw its revenues drop nearly 30% to $6.7m. But it’s also old news. Ibis has been working with IBM for at least a year, and its $8m sale of two Ibis 1000 implanters to IBM, which was finalized on June 9, was the largest in the company’s history. IBM now has three implanters. The agreement included an equipment licensing and development agreement giving IBM the right to a royalty-bearing, non-exclusive license to supplement Ibis’ equipment manufacturing capacity – which presumably means that IBM will be building its own equipment in the future. Ibis says it nevertheless hopes the IBM deal will expand industry acceptance of SIMOX-SOI technology. It will continue to develop proprietary oxygen implanters and process technology for oxidizing silicon, and is looking to form further strategic alliances. It is already working with Mitsubishi Electric Co (CI No 3,366). Ibis finally turned a small profit in its second quarter, announced yesterday, posting income of $86,000 on revenues of $5.3m, compared with $1.4m in the same quarter last year. Revenues for the half year more than doubled to $7.01m, compared with $3.05m posted in the same period last year.
