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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Duker who wrote (32342)	8/31/1999 11:35:00 AM
From: Sid Stuart	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Sadly, I can count myself among the 300,000 pre-orders. I will also forward that I am more than willing to pre-order the new Playstation II (and its increased memory and processor horsepower) as soon as it becomes available. Just trying to do my best to support or semiconductor industry! As an aside: the specs on these machines, especially the SNE unit, are incredible. We should not forget to factor these game consoles into our view of demand for silicon ... SNE & partner are willing to invest $1.2bn to satisfy what it sees as the potential demand for PSII. The great thing about game consoles is that they are loss leaders, sold near or at cost. So a $200 game station contains $150 worth of components. The even greater thing about the latest versions of the consoles from Sony and Sega are that they will either come with modems (Dreamcast) or will have a modem as an option. The Dreamcast will also ship with a browser. Forget the $1,000 PC. This will drop the startup cost for Internet access down to $200 (price of a Dreamcast) and the monthly cost of an ISP (possibly going to $0 if MSN has it's way.) How many millions of people currently unable to afford web access are going to come online in the next year with this technology?

To: Duker who wrote (32342)	8/31/1999 6:27:00 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 70976

Copper survey shows optimism for volume products in 2001/2002 A service of Semiconductor Business News, CMP Media Inc. Story posted 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m., PST, 8/31/99 By J. Robert Lineback MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Copper interconnect technology still faces barriers before becoming widely used in wafer fabs, but a majority of respondents to a new industry survey said they believe copper-based ICs will move into volume production and account for at least 10% of total chip shipments in two to three years. The survey was conducted in July and August by Philips Analytical, a subsidiary of Royal Philips Electronics N.V., and the Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) trade group. The sponsors today released a few top-line findings from the poll, which covered chip makers, material suppliers, equipment vendors, and research organizations. A total of 265 participants responded to the survey, said the sponsors. Philips Analytical and SEMI are scheduled to release more details from the copper survey at the Semicon Southwest trade show in Austin, Tex., on Oct. 19. The survey was conducted to help the industry understand challenges in using copper and to gauge opinions in the industry. The poll focused on the 0.18-, 0.13- and 0.1-micron technology nodes for logic and memory devices (see July 9 story). Philips and SEMI said their survey shows 63.7% of the respondents believing copper-based semiconductors will be in full volume production, accounting for about 10% of the total unit shipments in the 2001/2002 time frame. When asked about the principal barriers for greater acceptance of copper processing, respondents said "availability" was the biggest problem (46.6%), followed by "performance" (39%) and "price" (32.2%). However, the top-line results from the survey of 265 respondents shows a relative high degree of optimism about copper technology--76.8% said the current level of acceptance of copper-based chips among customers was "moderate to high," while 41.6% put the level at "above average." 204.247.196.14