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Technology Stocks : C-Cube -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stoctrash who wrote (46040)	10/13/1999 12:39:00 PM
From: BillyG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

(OT) Hitachi, LSI Logic to jointly develop 0.13-micron technology eetimes.com By Anthony Cataldo EE Times (10/13/99, 10:31 a.m. EDT) TOKYO — Hitachi Ltd. and LSI Logic Corp. have announced that they will co-develop 0.13-micron process technology as well as a new device architecture for 0.10-micron transistors. As part of the agreement, LSI Logic will also use Hitachi as a foundry to produce standard and custom devices with embedded DRAM starting in the second quarter of next year. The technology partnership calls for the two companies to exchange and co-develop 0.10-micron transistors, copper and low-k interconnects, advanced lithography, as well as explore the use of e-beam as a means of making prototypes for deep-submicron devices. The companies, which will divide the task among their respective R&D centers in the United States and Japan, hope to bring on-stream a common 0.13-micron process technology based on their joint development work in the next 18 months. At a press conference here, executives of the two companies said the costs and technical hurdles of developing new materials and reliable processing techniques for the 0.13-micron generation and beyond are becoming so prohibitive that few companies can afford to go it alone. While a company like Intel Corp. can develop the process technology and new lithography masks itself for a few products and then quickly amortize the cost by shipping in huge volumes, LSI Logic doesn't have that luxury. "In our case we do hundreds of designs per year, and we're not using one reticle set," said Joe Zelayeta, executive vice president of worldwide operations for LSI Logic (Milpitas, Calif.). While the deal is far-reaching from a technology point of view, the two companies limited its scope to so-called "pre-competitive" technologies. It will not include any exchange of intellectual property, joint product development or sharing of common design methodologies. No money will be exchanged. Both companies said they are a good fit because they have little product overlap, and they have many complementary technologies they can exchange. Hitachi, for example, has already been using copper interconnect in circuits for its mainframes, while LSI Logic has experience with low-k dielectric interconnects in its current 0.18-micron process technology. The companies will work to integrate both into their next process technology. In their development of 0.1-micron transistors, the companies will work together to develop thin but robust gate dielectric materials, define optical lithography characteristics, optimize device performance and leakage current, ensure reliability and come up with a new failure analysis methodology, among other areas. LSI Logic will also tap Hitachi as a foundry for embedded DRAM, giving it access to Hitachi's latest 0.2-micron multi-bank embedded DRAM module produced at Hitachi's fab in Naka, Japan. Several years ago, LSI Logic had formed a partnership with Micron Technology Inc. to co-develop embedded DRAM, but those two companies went their separate ways last year after they determined that the development costs were still to high to justify what was considered a niche market, said John Daane, executive vice president of LSI Logic, who oversees communications, computer and ASIC products. While embedded DRAM won't be used in all of its products, LSI Logic projects the market will double in size from $1 billion this year to $2 billion next year, Daane said. The company considers embedded DRAM another option that some customers will need, just as some are asking for embedded programmable logic and analog circuitry, he said. For Hitachi, the process technology agreement is the latest in a series of partnerships the company has forged with other semiconductor companies in recent years. In late 1997, it partnered with STMicroelectronics to design its next-generation SH-5 architecture, which was recently described at the Microprocessor Forum. In June, Hitachi and NEC Corp. agreed to jointly develop 256-Mbit DRAM core technology and to seek ways to share capacity and co-market their products. "Development of semiconductor process technology is a huge task," said Kunio Hasegawa, executive vice president of Hitachi's Semiconductor & Integrated Circuits group and general manager of the System LSI division. "It won't be feasible to carry on with development on our own. And since the industry is changing rapidly, we need to share the burden of risk."

To: Stoctrash who wrote (46040)	10/13/1999 12:44:00 PM
From: Black-Scholes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

Well, there is a "silver lining" in all this: All the trailer trash MO players will be out BEFORE earnings.

To: Stoctrash who wrote (46040)	10/13/1999 4:25:00 PM
From: Logain Ablar	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50808

Hi Fred: BS seems to attack anyone that tries to post informative information on the thread. I see it just wasn't me. People seem to not understand the difficulty (and time) in re calibrating ALL of the FABs lines and tools. You wouldn't want one tool to be off a few milimeters and mess up the whole wafer. Also factor in the elimination of the 15% discount and 10% price increases (opps thats a 25% cost increase) by the FABs and there is a little more risk out in the market place for CUBE. I can see the attack coming but thats why I sold at the beginning of this run. Will reenter again after all of the news is out. Tim