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Technology Stocks : Lam Research (LRCX, NASDAQ): To the Insiders -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Duker who wrote (3029)	7/6/1999 11:50:00 AM
From: Kirk ©	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5867

Typical Ceramic, Alumina, is Al2O3 (two aluminum atoms and 3 Oxygen atoms). There is another BeO that is sometimes used, but its dust is highly toxic and many companies won't have anything to do with it. I doubt BeO is something that you would want to fire particles at to create more toxic particles so I assume they are using Alumina. Al is often used to make wires (and is being replaced with Cu - copper) Blast ceramic with high energy particles and it knocks some Al atoms out that contaminate the wafers. Enough Al in the wrong place and you get shorts between wires on the chip. Thus you have to clean the reactor often to keep defects down. This is my simple minded understanding as an old IC designer rather than as a process engineer, but it is how I read the improvement. Also, clean reactors make more uniform parts so a longer cleaning cycle is good for more than just throughput. regards Kirk out