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Technology Stocks : General Lithography
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To: Jonathan Edwards who wrote (384)6/5/1997 10:13:00 AM
From: Andrew Vance   of 1305
 
I am very familiar with what you are talking about but it is not as big a deal as it may seem. Both posts deal with X-ray lithography and the accompanying masks/reticles. It is common knowledge that traditional glass with metal will not be effective in X-ray lithography. The x-rays would penetrate both the metal and the glass.
You need films that can block x-rays. Originally it was Boron Nitrode with gold films that we used.

Bottom line is that the mask writing tools may remain somewhat the same at the mask suppliers (or the next generation of systems in place). These suppliers will begin to look more like IC fabs, as you point out, since they will be processing some of their own films to create the reticles or the mask blanks. However, I would not be surprised to see a different set of mask blank vendors arrive on the scene. This is not to say the present vendors will go out of business since they could just as easily be up to the challenges.

The real question is whether these new mask blanks will be circular or square in nature. Each has some interesting possibilities.

The supplier of mask blanks does not deliver anywhere near the volume of blanks as does a wafer supplier like WFR. A 26 reticle DRAM product would have 26 mask blanks associated with it and would be able to run thousands, if not tens of thousands of wafers prior to being replaced. So the ratio is so large, it really would not impact the business of WFR as it exists today. The infrastructure needed to create these blanks or masks is very costly and would be best described as a mini IC fab operation, as you point out.

Finally, the above 26 layer scenario is not exactly accurate because 100% of the layers would not be using x-ray lithography. Maybe 50% of the layers would require the use of x-ray masks/reticles. Given this factor, there is even less of a requirement for these types of masking blank materials. Do not get me wrong, the cost of these blanks would be very high and be profitable for the manufacturer of these materials. It just remains to be seen whether it is going to be the blank supplier or the mask shop that will be putting the lionshare of the processing into these substrates for use. My educated guess is the trditional mask shop will be augmenting their operations with the tools required to build these masks from a different type of mask blank delivered by essentially the same mask blank suppliers.

Just My Opinion.

Andrew
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