Post from the Cymer board on AOL Motley Fool:
Subject: Could be old news but...
Date: Mon, Oct 20, 1997 14:22 EDT
From: GriffinMrX
Message-id: <19971020182201.OAA27721@ladder02.news.aol.com>
Saw this little blurb from Smith Barney and hope that some of the techies here can validate, elaborate or estimate the impact. This piece (an one page research report on Nikon from SB) was dated 10/6; I'm quite surprised I haven't seen anything here on this specifically although some of the items here have been touched upon. The notable items:
Summary:
Although Nikon appears to have secured supply of some excimer laser from Komatsu in response to problems with Cymer models, the change does not come fast enought to improve prospects for FY97.
Opinion:
Nikon has confirmed that it will begin using KrF excimer lasers supplied by Komatsu. Although the two companies do not appear to have agreed on any firm shipment schedule in terms of units, we believe Nikon will take most, if not all, of the 21 units that Komatsu has scheduled to build in the January-March quarter of 1998. There may be a room for small number of additional units, but, given the difficulties of tooling up the excimer laser
production lines, we do not expect any major upward variance.
For Nikon, this change does not come fast enough to improve their FY97 (ending March 1998) earnings prospects. We still expect a sizable shortfall from their earnings forecast for the fiscal year. For next year, however, Komatsu lasers should help imrpove their shipment schedules and reduce field maintenance expenses. Apart from the laser problems, Nikon still faces major hurdles in terms of inadequate stepper throughput with scanning steppers.
If not corrected soon, teh company will probably risk losing substantial stepper market share to ASM Lithography next year. For this reason, we are maintaining our 4-H (Underperform, High Risk) rating on the shares.
Our research shows that Komatsu's KrF laser has performance specifications that far exceed those of Cymer lasers. The on-going performance testing at the Komatsu plant has shown that their lasers could operate comfortably at up to five billion shots, if not more, compared with about half this number for Cymer lasers. Also, the beam stability (variances in output beam energy) of Komatsu lasers appears to be far superior than for Cymer models. In
short, Komatsu appears to have achieved a level of performance that was unthinkable in the past. The challenge for Komatsu from here on is to make certain that production processes are maintained tight engouth to ensure uniform and stable operational quality in all the lasers they ship. This would help avoid unexpected trouble in the field, where Cymer now appears to be having problems.
What impact would this have to Cymer (it doesn't sound too great but the impact could be less than I fear). This seems quite contradictory to pieces I have seen that indicate all the problems were resolved. Are there two types of lasers that Cymer produces? (steppers vs. other), hopefully someone can break this down. Need the engineers to post here as well as those that follow this more closely than I do. Past posts have indicated the Komatsu is
not a threat, where the above piece would indicate the reverse is true. Maybe, the piece is inaccurate although it sounds like the author confirmed his/her source (company directly?).
GriffinMRX |
