Couple other salient points from Angus conversation:
Question: VLSI numbers were fairly agressive, are you comfortable with those production numbers?:
Answer: VLSI did a top down research analysis. By this I mean that he contacted the actual manufacturers to determine where they thought DUV was headed relative to current and future demand. And so, by his estimation, from his research, he determined that DUV was going to be in great demand and become even greater. Am I comfortable? Well, there's nothing that we see in the market right now that would discount his numbers.
Question: Bret considered the possibility that a slowdown in Cymer related DUV sales could occur next year due to competitive or general market forces, do you agree with this assessment?
Answer: Again, there's nothing that we see currently in the market that would substantiate this claim. I've talked to Bret and he's mentioned his concerns and I told him what I'm telling you, we haven't found any evidence which would support a slowdown of Cymer laser sales due to competition or other factors.
He then implied that if the market wasn't there Komatsu and Physik wouldn't be chasing it, they would be chasing other technologies.
Question: Again Bret mentioned he thought Cymer would produce 400 total systems for 98, but this would represent a smaller percentage increase than anyone to date has estimated, either VLSI or Canon, Nikon or SVG. Do you think this number is a function of manufacturing ramp up, time to market?
Answer: Well, the average ramp up has been approximately six months, but one of our customers has been able to reduce ramp up time down to 3 to 4 months, a considerable improvement. So, I don't know how Bret arrived at his total number, but if he considered ramp up as a limiting factor, then that situation in improving, considerably in my opinion. |
