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Akins touted Cymer's production know-how to be at least as important as the laser technology itself, and it being a significant descriminator in maintaining a lead over the competition, Komatsu and Lambda Physik. The Cymer laser was also purported at one time or another to have (1) largest usable pulse power, thereby yielding highest wafer print rate, (2) smallest volume and foot print, thereby taking up proportionally less space in the clean-room fab facility, (3) highest MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures), (4) most expensive. More important, as of a couple months ago (according to Akins), all chip makers who placed orders for DUV steppers specified that the DUV source had to be Cymer. Mind you, the end user wasn't looking for the cheapest, he wanted the best, even if it cost a bit more.
More important than the patents is the production know-how. Patents can be circumvented by a small change here/there. Or they can be litigated to the point they become academic or procured for small royalty payment. The production, assembly, system integration and test of the DUV source involve state-of-art hardware and software tools that, per Akins, has taken Cymer several years and many of the world's best laser physicists and engineers to develop.
Tulvio
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