Mr. Yakov, in response to your questions:
1. Why does the booth have to be big and impressive? 2 major reasons:
A. Investments are heavily influenced by the image customers have of the company. If the vendor seems to be a large, stable, industry leader, they will tend to trust that they will stand by their products, and offer reliable service in the event of trouble. Having a big booth is important for this. Most leading companies at semicon Japan have the following to impress their customers:
i. Large impressive booths
ii. Video shows
iii. Cute girls in mini skirts offering drinks and handing out pamplets to customers (no PC rebuttals, please)
iv. Seating areas for salespeople to talk with customers
Cymer had none of the above, which are standard in Japan. My booth certainly had all of the above!
B. End customers can ask stepper manufacturers to use Cymer or Komatsu in their products. Even if the steppers are not available with Komatsu now, customers can and will make whatever requests they feel are justified. It is important for Cymer to attract as many customers as possible to the booth, talk to them, get to know what they are thinking, and give them a good impression. With the small booth, I think it must have been hard to have enough sales people on hand to deal with a large flow of customers (this may parallel their shortcomings in service).
I think that for now Cymer will hold the majority of business, and I hope that they continue to do so in the future. But I think that it would be foolish to use what the A Team tells us as the only source of information. They would have us believe that no one else has shipped lasers to final customers. Komatsu seems to have shipped to Taiwan as well as Japan. Keep digging for info!
Good luck...
THC |
