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Technology Stocks : Zygo Corporation (ZIGO)

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To: Donald B. Fuller who wrote (670)	2/11/1999 6:52:00 PM
From: Stitch	Read Replies (1) of 722

Donald, <<I think I am going to like my avg down at 11/sh on this one. > I think I will as well. Bought this one initially in the fourteens and decided to avg at 11/ish as well. Then I saw something today that sort of brings at all home for me. Apparently VEECO did a "technology road map" at a seminar last Fall and a couple of slides made their way to me. The one that impressed me the most was a chart which I will attempt to explain. (No way to scan it as it a bad fax copy. However I think I will try to recreate it and have it available for emailing if anyone is interested.) Imagine (or better yet, make a pencil sketch) a chart with the vertical axis showing "Vertical feature size" on a scale of .01 Angstroms to 100 millimeters. The horizontal axis is labeled "Lateral Feature Size" and scale again is .01 angstroms all the way up to 100 mm. In the data field Veeco has shaded areas by meterology technology. In other words it shows Technology versus Resolution. For those applications that require resolving features as small as 0.5 angstroms (Lateral/Vertical) up to 10 angstroms lateral by 10 micrometers vertical AFM is the only way to go. Now, understand that the horizontal/vertical dimensions described correlate to the kinds of designed-in features or the anomalies that the DD and semiconductor industry increasingly must deal with and you will get an idea of how important deploying AFM becomes. The chart, by the way, also shows stylus profiling, optical profiling, scatterometry, and surface contour methods of probing as well. Now, lets bring it back to the real world. Many technology predictions published about data storage recently show the kinds of tolerances being dealt with today and expected later. For example: surface roughness requirements of 0.1 nano meters peak-to-peak in the year 2000. (Head air bearing surfaces). Bit cell size in media is forecasted by HMTT as 0.8 micrometers (lateral) by .064 micrometers (horizontal) in the year 2000 (to yield a density of approx. 10 Gbits PSI). Flying heights (heads over media)are expected to go to sub microinch with an overall sigma requirement of less then 0.1 microinch(Zigo has the technically premeir flying height tester). Media carbon overcoats are expected to go from a nominal thickness of 100 angstroms to 50 angstroms or so. Slider carbon coatings from 50 angstroms to sub 20 angstroms. Read gaps in MR heads from today's nominal 200 nanometers to 160 nano meters next year and 140 nanometers in 2002. Stripe height in recording heads are going from today's nominal 0.5 micrometers to 0.4 next year and 0.2 in 2004. I could go on but the bottom line is that meterology in the data storage arena (and semi conductor where some of the numbers are smaller and tighter) is absolutely dependent on measuring with AFM. That is why ZIGO and VECO have been jockying heavily on this technology. Now both have it. Both companies are investable IMO and with different models of business both are attractive. Best, Stitch

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