1.Partially, although they were a later entrant than Lambda, their success has also been a function of being the first to mass produce the lasers to spec and their complete focus on lasers for microlithography(Lambda also makes lasers for medical, scientific, and industrial apps). Success going forward will be as dependent on their ability to service the existing customer base, something the competitors do not have an infrastructure in place for. It's not clear competitors have aggressively ramped. I have not seen any press releases from Lambda on a large capacity expansion(and I've been watching). Lambda reported orders of $5 in calendar Q497, did not report orders for calendar Q198, $4M in calendar Q298, and continue to ship less than 10 units/Q. And yes, Cymer customers continue to look at second sources. BTW, Cymer's R&D exceeds Lambda's sales of microlithography lasers.
2.Market size projections went out the window with the Asian flu. Prior to that, it was the thought the market may be about $0.5B in 2000.
3.Somewhere around 80% of lasers shipping. Lambda does not have any being used in production. It's hard to tell how Komatsu is doing, but at the beginning of '98, they said they would capture half of the Japanese domestic market, or 10% of world sales. With Cymer customers continuing to work down inventories of lasers, I'm not sure Komatsu can meet their stated target. The stepper companies simply have enough lasers for now.
4.No threat from competing technologies for at least five years. Much of the recent technical press is beginning to question whether post-optical technologies will be needed at all.
semiconductor.net
5.Ushio wants to enter this market.
6.If these were major issues, it's unlikely Cymer would have shipped over 670 lasers in the last six quarters.
Bob |
