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Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC)
INTC 37.28-0.6%3:59 PM EST
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To: Chris Vu who wrote (2489)7/22/1996 2:21:00 PM
From: Paul Engel   of 186894
 
Chris - Re: "In manufacturing the chip, Intel may have to use gallium
arsenide instead of silicon to move the electrons more quickly,
the sources said...."

As the old expression goes - a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Very few gallium arsenide ventures have become commercial successes - Vitesse and one other firm - Triquint are the rare exceptions and they produce very low density products by today's standards.

Intel has consistently eschewed gallium arsenide and invested heavily in increasing the density and performance of MOS/CMOS technology - all silicon based.

As yet, they have not appeared to encounter any fundamental limits to silicon technology.

Question One for the day - Has anyone ever seen an 8 inch gallium arsenide wafer? I'm not sure of the state of the art for GaAs, but I'll bet wafers are from the 6 inch size,let alone 8 inch. How many CPUs with 10 million transistors will fit one 6 inch wafer? Answer - not enough to become profitable.

Question No. 2 - What manufacturer can crank out 50,000 GaAs wafers per month?

Another aside - the infrastructure for supporting the capital equipment required for massive deployment of GaAs does not exist. Check with AMAT and LAM and ask about their GaAs equipment development programs.

Mr. Davey, I believe, has misinterpreted information or is otherwise unfamiliar with the technology requirements of semiconductor manufacturing.

Paul

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