the following is excerpted from the
september issue of the "red herring"
top 100 technology companies article,
page 118 of the magazine:
cymer
....."To stay within the bounds of Moore's Law, the size
of the circuits on silicon chips must shrink. Semiconductor
manufacturers depend on microscopic wavelengths of advanced
light sources to keep circuits as small as possible, turning
to mercury ultraviolet lasers that enable circuit patterns
as small as 0.3 micron. But, as Cymer cofounders Robert Akins
and Richard Sandstrom expected, Moore's Law has been upheld,
and mercury lasers have reached their ceiling.
Most analysts assumed that wafer manufacturing would leap straight
from mercury light to Xrays, which have smaller wavelengths than
even ultraviolet light. Cymer correctly predicted, however, that
for the foreseeable future, Xrays would be too costly for volume
wafer production. As a result, Cymer is the only company producing
deep ultraviolet lasers capable of reducing the size of semiconductor
circuits; its krypton fluoride lasers enable images of less than
0.25 micron resolution in volume production and have the potential
to approach 0.1 micron critical dimension requirements in the future.
Cymer commanded roughly 80 percent of the deep ultraviolet laser
market in 1996, revenues jumped from $18.8 million in 1995 to $58.4
million in 1996, and the company projects 1997 revenues of $120
million.
But don't expect Cymer to take its success for granted. Despite
manufacturing at capacity, Cymer is developing an argon fluoride
laser that could enable even smaller images. The company realizes
that, without relentless R&D, Moores's Law could just as easily
take away what it has given." |
