Sounds very good for the mask makers and especially DPMI which, if I remember correctly from a January announcement, has a proprietary position on pellicles for DUV masks. I have maintained for a while that DPMI is the best positioned semiconductor industry related company.
Note the following from ETEC release today:
IC Mask Pattern Generation Trends
''Requirements for leading-edge 0.18 and 0.25 micron mask pattern generation (PG) systems remain strong in North America,
Europe and Taiwan. In Korea and Japan, capital budgets for semiconductor manufacturers continue to be severely constrained.
In Japan, we see a shift in manufacturing capacity requirements to the merchant maskmakers from the captive mask shops,''
stated Steve Cooper, Etec's chairman, president and chief executive officer. ''This shift is delaying order rates in Japan,
although we expect activity to pick up toward the end of calendar 1998 for shipments in the first half of calendar 1999. The
Korean financial situation is unchanged and order activity is not expected to improve in this calendar year.''
Cooper continued, ''As merchant maskmakers try to meet growing demand with both existing and new PG tools, we are
seeing increased interest in MEBES upgrades, which provide higher productivity and performance.''
I see it that on top of all the other good things we have discussed -
more chips with complex designs, more complex designs=more masks, smaller feature sizes = masks much more expensive, old product masks
retain their pricing, etc. - we apparently now have a trend from captive shops to merchant shops (captive shops can't afford to keep
up?) and upgrading of existing equipment = more effective use of capital.
I would like to hear some negative comments on my thesis, so I can have a more balanced view. |
