Santa Clara-based Kinetics Group Inc., a maker of semiconductor production equipment, plans to add 50 jobs in the next six months to its Yorba Linda plant, on top of 100 new jobs added there so far this year.
“We already know we’re going to need these people,” said Odile Ronat, director of marketing for Kinetics Electronics, the division the Yorba Linda plant falls under. “This facility is not fully utilized. It’s about 70% utilized right now.”
The expansion will nearly double the 160-person workforce Kinetics had in Yorba Linda at the start of the year. Kinetics also is adding new cleanroom space, calibration equipment, metal fabrication machinery and other gear.
Kinetics makes equipment used in chip and biotechnology manufacturing. Newport Beach-based chip maker Conexant Systems Inc. is among its customers. So is Thermco, in Orange, a unit of San Jose-based chip equipment maker Silicon Valley Group Inc. Other customers include Sunnyvale-based chip maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and Applied Materials Inc., a Santa Clara maker of chip production equipment.
The Yorba Linda plant produces mass-flow controllers, which are components of larger chip production equipment. The controllers regulate reactive gases and other chemicals used in chip making.
Kinetics and other chip gear makers are growing along with the red-hot semiconductor industry. In June, industry shipments of chip equipment surged 79% to $2.2 billion from a year ago, according to Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International, a San Jose-based trade group. And for every $100 worth of products that chip-gear makers shipped in June, they logged $126 in new orders.
After an industry slowdown two years ago, chip makers are upgrading the equipment used in their factories, known as wafer fabrication plants. That’s boosting Kinetics, as well as rivals such as Andover, Mass.-based MKS Instruments Inc., Bedford, Mass.-based Millipore Corp. and Japan’s Horiba Group.
“There’s been a large increase in spending on wafer fabs,” Ronat said. “It’s as much as 40% this year, depending on which analyst you talk to.”
Ronat said she expects growth in spending by chip makers to slow to about 20% next year. That’s enough to justify Kinetics’ Yorba Linda expansion, she said, and the company’s 80,000-square-foot building there should be able to accommodate the growth.
Kinetics could look at expanding its product line in Yorba Linda and elsewhere, Ronat said.
“There’s a lot of opportunity to bring in new product lines for the same semiconductor manufacturers,” she said. “We’ll decide which (products) to add in the next six to 12 months.”
Ronat declined to say how much Kinetics is spending to upgrade its Yorba Linda plant. The company is undergoing a management-led buyout that could see Kinetics emerge as an independent company. Currently, Kinetics is a unit of Palm Desert-based USFilter Corp., itself a subsidiary of France’s Vivendi SA.
Kinetics Chief Executive David Shimmon and other officials are working with Deutsche Bank AG’s investment arm, DB Capital Partners, and New York’s Behrman Capital on the proposed buyout.
Kinetics Group purchased Unit Instruments Inc. in January 1999 to create the Kinetics Electronics subsidiary in Orange County. Unit Instruments was founded in Orange and later moved to Yorba Linda.
At the time Kinetics bought Unit Instruments, the company already had an office in Irvine for its Kinetics Construction division, which installs high-purity piping for electronics and pharmaceutical companies, some of which overlap with Kinetics Electronics’ customer base.
Kinetics Construction also has a mechanical contracting company in Carlsbad, said Ronat, who came to Kinetics Electronics from Unit Instruments.
