>>IBM turned it down and said: Won't be ready for 10 years!
IBM has been extremely wrong before about big issues in the importance of future technology, i.e. Microsoft. IMHO only Xerox is a bigger screw-up in giving away the future. Either of them could have owned the PC world.
More to the point, I think there is a real fundamental issue with the creation of EUV Ltd. that a lot of people are not fully appreciating, because of emotion. The threat to Cymer is not EUV as such, but rather TRW, who promises to have a prototype EUV YAG ready before the end of 1998. If it works, this could put it in production in about 2 to 2 1/2 years. I personally don't think they can do it, but I've been wrong before. I think the more likely scenario is that the consortium will build a machine and end up buying the light source from Cymer.
But there is a percentage chance I'm wrong, and it is an appreciable risk, and it would bankrupt Cymer. You have to factor this risk into the stock's fundamental value. Simply pooh-poohing the chances of an outfit with that much money and expertise is simplistic. To me, TRW is a bigger near-term threat than JMAR, since EUV is more likely to be the next generation stepper technology of choice. I think the more fundamental future technologies become bigger and bigger threats as the lines approach sizes that would require deeper x-ray wavelengths, like below 40 Angstroms. |
