Cymer Q4 1999 Conference Call transcript, part 2 of 3
Akins:
I would now like to spend a few minutes expanding on two new emerging themes relevant to Cymer's near-term future and our strategies to capitalize on them. The first of these themes is DUV light source OEE versus cost-of-operation. As the DUV ramp enters the 90 to 100% rate in many factories, and as the potential cost of lost production due to equipment ill-performance can easily eclipse the cost of light source consumables, a more sophisticated measure, that of overall equipment effectiveness or OEE, is now emerging as the more relevant cost-management measure than cost-of-operation, or COOP, for many chipmakers to most effectively improve their factory productivity and reduce costs. As defined by Sematech, OEE is the product of the following three categories: availability, performance efficiency, and rate of quality. Availability includes unscheduled equipment downtime and scheduled equipment downtime. Performance efficiency includes idling and minor stoppages, as well as reduced speed of equipment. And rate of quality encompasses rework and wafer or yield losses. For the DUV light source business, in addition to increasing module lifetimes, maximizing OEE for chipmakers requires first, for availability, production-proven statistically valid reliability data and minimum preventative [sic] maintenance schedules, and the ability to quickly respond to unscheduled downs with trained personnel and spare parts. Understanding MTBF and MTTR, or mean-time-between failures and mean-time-to-repair, is critical. Second, for performance efficiency, production-proven ability of the equipment to operate at maximum throughput levels 7 by 24. Third, for rate of quality, production-proven equipment consistently meeting all operational specifications. You have heard me many times of late articulate Cymer's marketing strategy of focusing on successfully executing the fundamentals: technology in product leadership, volume manufacturing excellence, and a world-class field service and support organization. The breadth and global focus of our efforts over the past several years on the development and mass-deployment of reliable production-proven technology and demonstrated responsive support infrastructure places Cymer in the unique position today of being virtually unchallenged on the new OEE front. The second theme is that of Cymer's role in wavelength transition decisions. With the successful adoption of DUV, the pressure of Moore's law, and the product-specific nature of different lithography technologies - that is, for example, for memory or for microprocessors or for ASICs etc. - it is imperative that we at Cymer do the following. And I'm not just speaking theoretically; here this is what we are doing. One, take a leadership role in determining and providing on a timely basis the most-viable next-generation lithographic light source solutions. And, taking advantage of our knowledge of the above, and because resources are always limited, two, be selective in what we do and understand how to manage the impact of what we don't do. Clearly, the time has come when addressing the challenges of the four wavelengths only through new product introductions is impractical and not economically viable for Cymer and its customers. Instead, because of the nature of the technical and technological challenges, and the timing imposed by the 248, 193, 157, and EUV, Cymer will address them through a combination of product leadership at 248 nm, technology leadership at 193 nm, and scientific leadership at 157 nm and EUV. To put this in terms of Cymer's product offerings for the year 2000, we plan to introduce a comprehensive set of three new products to address the needs of high-NA, high-throughput scanners, designed to extend our KrF market and product leadership into the next generation of productions tools. The evolution of 193 nm lithography and Cymer's role in that technology began several years ago with the incorporation of our early light sources on prototype small-field steppers used by chipmakers to develop the basic 193 nm processes. Following that, our ELS-5000A light sources have seen pre-production use, testing the efficacy of 193 nm for production use. The learning we have gained over those years has allowed us to define the best technological and product solutions. Our ELS-6020A 4KHz 20-watt ultra-narrow-bandwidth light source, to be introduced in the second half of this year, to enable our customers to economically produce the next generations of devices. Meanwhile, the corresponding evolutions of 157 nm and EUV are in their infancy, and we have taken and plan to continue taking, a scientific leadership position at each of those wavelengths, as demonstrated by a variety of highly-recognized publications in advanced lithography conferences worldwide, and through close cooperative development efforts with our customers. Through these three fundamentals of scientific, technology, and product leadership, we enable our customers to keep pace with the industry demand by eliminating non-viable, non-economical paths, and quickly narrowing the focus of their product definitions and corporate resources. Knowing what not to do allows Cymer and our customers to eliminate wasted resource, increase speed of execution, minimize risks, and meet time to market. |
