Design-Build Contract Awarded for New Specialty Chemicals Unit Addition in Arizona

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Planar Solutions, LLC a joint venture company comprised of Arch Chemicals (NYSE: ARJ) (Norwalk, Connecticut) and Wacker Silicones Corporation (Adrian, Michigan) has plans to construct a new CMP (Chemical Mechanical Planarization) unit at the existing Arch Chemical plant located in Queen Creek (Mesa), Arizona. An approximately 4,000 square foot building will be constructed to accommodate this new unit. This new unit will produce slurries that will be used for polishing wafers in the semiconductor industry.

Johnson Carlier (Tempe, Arizona) has been awarded the design-build contract for this project. Engineering has commenced and construction is scheduled to begin June 2003. Plans for this new unit are to be completed by the end of the year.

Planar Solutions, LLC develops, manufactures and markets CMP slurries for oxide, copper and associated barrier layers to the semiconductor industry. The company was created to specifically meet the evolving needs of the semiconductor industry. Patents have been obtained for copper slurries by Arch Chemicals who has granted exclusive rights to Planar Solutions. Planar Solutions combine Wacker Chemicals dispersion production expertise with Arch Microelectronic Materials strengths in technology, global market relationships, customer applications and technical support.

Wacker Chemical Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wacker-Chemie GmbH (Munich, Germany) with over $3 billion in annual sales. Arch Chemicals does approximately $1 billion in sales with manufacturing plants in North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Africa.