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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials
AMAT 259.21-4.0%Dec 12 9:30 AM EST
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To: E. T. who wrote (69801)4/15/2003 3:48:04 PM
From: runes   of 70976
 
<<Don't worry, there'll be a paper/computer trail...>>
Do you really think that illegal shipments are done with clean paper trails?

Let me tell you about one such paper trail. In the mid '80's the University of Lubjiana ordered two plasma etchers from Lam Research. These plasma etchers vanished off a train in Switzerland on the way to a Swiss trans-shipper with a dubious history. They never reached Yugoslavia and no trace of them was ever found.
...But, in the early '90's, Lam GmbH was contacted by a Russian importer looking for replacement parts for the same etchers as identified by the serial numbers. (It is worth noting that these are the same etchers used by Zilog to make the Z80 microprocessor which is the one that the Russians reversed engineered for their weapons platforms.)

Now - did Lam Research conspire to send banned technology to the USSR? Or was it all a conspiracy of the USSR and Yugoslavia? Or was the disappearance engineered by the Swiss trans-shipment company? And does that implicate the Swiss?

And just to add some more flavor to the confusion - the University of Lubjiana ordered two more of the same etchers through a technology agreement with the company I was working at. The deal was that we got to use the etchers for a year while we trained their post docs and they got the export licenses. Two weeks before they were set to ship we got a surprise visit by the Department of Commerce and the FBI who halted the pending shipment. Seems they were rather upset that the University had not even begun work on a cleanroom to house the etchers.
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