I will agree about the low likelihood of one of these products being even available in two years, but then, six months ago, I would have said copper connectivity was three years off. The unexpected is always upon us.
Anyway, my point was not that DUV will be dead in two or three years. My point was that, if the market lags, time is not on Cymer's side. The possibility of breakthroughs increases with time. If Cymer is not maximizing profits during this period from its fully-capitalized rampup, where will it be in a few years? As far as Cymer's profits go, the Asian downturn has just come at an unlucky moment for them.
As to the DRAM problem, however, you're missing my point. There is a school of thought that "DRAM fabs must have .25um (or 300mm) equipment to remain competitive, therefore they will have to buy a lot of equipment". You need to consider this from a completely different point of view.
These guys lost money on the last round of capital improvements. They have not even recovered their investment. Now they are going to go to big Asian banks, at a time when these banks are under severe pressure to insure the soundness of their loans, and say "you have to lend us another $100MM for new facilities to remain competitive in an industry where we're losing money because we spent so much to remain competitive three years ago"???
The point is, in some cases it isn't going to matter how much they NEED the improvements. The money's just not going to be there. They don't have it, they won't be able to borrow it, and nobody's going to give them equity capital. Asia's past willingness to fund this DRAM capacity glut is a case study in why their economies are in such terrible shape, and I don't think the IMF is going to let them do it anymore, even in Japan. |
