John,
I am not an engineer, but the headline "Chip Progress May Soon Be Hitting Barrier" has been heralded for the past fifteen years. Unfortunately for the journalists who write these articles, the engineers keep coming up with ways around these obstacles.
However, we are now getting to a point(below 5 nanometers) where you really cannot push it further. At this point, what will take over, a generation or two of IC's with an increasing number layers until a successor to the DUV or EUV takes over? I do not know. But one thing is certain. The chip industry, for all of the revolutionary ideas that have come from it, it moves at a very slow pace. Whatever the next Big Thing is, it will not come out of the dark but will be something already on the table. This is in fact necessary since volume production will only be undertaken and Billions of dollars will only be spent, on a transparent, well-known idea. Additionally, AMAT has the experts who will be necessary to make the changeover to the next generation of IC, post-silicon.
I do not know what will succeed silicon, only am strongly convinced AMAT will be a part of it.
Regards,
Brian
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