The US is on the brink of becoming almost totally dependent on Japan for semiconductor fabrication equipment following Perkin-Elmer Corp’s failure to find a US buyer for its chipmaking equipment business. Nikon Corp is believed to be the front-runner in the Japanese bidding for the business, and Canon Inc is also thought to be interested. Sale of the business to a foreign company would require presidential approval, but the Administration would have little option but to nod it through if the altervative were closure of the business. According to the New York Times, IBM, Perkin-Elmer’s biggest customer, is extremely worried about the fate of the business – but not sufficiently so to buy the business itself. It has been financing the development and manufacture of the next generation of wafert steppers at Perkin-Elmer, but vice-chairman Jack Kuehler told the Times that it does not have either the expertise or the desire to enter the semicon ductor tool-making business itself. Perkin-Elmer put its semiconductor equipment business up for sale in April, saying that it wanted to concentrate on its instruments bus iness. Nikon Corp continued to de cline comment on whether it was considering bidding or not; Canon told Reuters it had no interest.
