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

To: Gottfried who wrote (33135)	11/11/1999 8:38:00 AM
From: Jeffrey D	Respond to of 70976

quote.bloomberg.com TSMC RECEIVES APPLIED MATERIALS' 100TH TAIWAN SHIPMENT OF THE Mirra CMP System; Mirra System is CMP Production Tool of Record at the World's Largest Semiconductor Foundry Business Editors/High-Tech Writers SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 11, 1999--Applied Materials, Inc. announced today the shipment of its 100th Mirra(R) CMP (chemical mechanical polishing) system to Taiwan. This milestone system was purchased by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. (TSMC), the world's largest semiconductor foundry company, for its Fab 6 in Tainan. This shipment adds to an already large number of Mirra systems in use throughout TSMC's advanced fabs. With more than 350 systems installed worldwide, the Mirra system is the industry's leading CMP solution. "TSMC chose the Mirra CMP system as our production tool of record because it delivers the high productivity and superior performance required for our competitive volume manufacturing business," commented Steve Tso, senior vice president of Operations at TSMC. "For years, Applied Materials has provided the advanced systems and technologies that help us meet our latest and most stringent process requirements. The Mirra system continues this history with its proven process reliability." The Mirra system, which is available for 200mm and 300mm wafer sizes, utilizes a unique multi-platen architecture, Titan Head(TM) wafer carriers and precise endpoint detection technology to deliver superior process performance and throughput. In addition to extending the Mirra system to sub-0.18 micron device geometries, these features make it a highly flexible CMP system that is currently used to planarize a variety of films including copper, oxide, polysilicon and tungsten for interconnect, STI (shallow trench isolation) and new SOI (silicon on insulator) applications. Chris Smith, vice president and general manager of Applied Materials' CMP division said, "Over the past several years, our position has steadily increased as valued customers in Taiwan such as TSMC have chosen the Mirra system as their CMP production tool of record. We understand TSMC's demanding production requirements and are pleased that our CMP technology meets their needs for exceptional reliability, quality and productivity. This acceptance is very important to us, and is a major factor in our achieving this milestone in Taiwan." According to market researcher Dataquest, Applied Materials was estimated to have 37 percent share of the CMP equipment market in 1998, making it the CMP market share leader. Dataquest forecasts the CMP market to grow from $632 million in 1998 to $1.9 billion by 2004, representing a 20 percent compounded annual growth rate. Mirra CMP systems are currently installed at nine of the world's top ten chipmakers. Innovations that continue to provide chipmakers with a Total Solutions(R) approach to address a wide range of CMP applications include copper and a new tungsten-plus process in addition to the Mirra Mesa(TM) CMP, a dry-in dry-out solution that integrates advanced wafer cleaning capability. Applied Materials, Inc. is a Fortune 500 global growth company and the world's largest supplier of wafer fabrication systems and services to the global semiconductor industry. Applied Materials is traded on the Nasdaq National Market System under the symbol "AMAT." Applied Materials' web site is appliedmaterials.com.

To: Gottfried who wrote (33135)	11/11/1999 10:19:00 AM
From: Tony Viola	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Gottfried, OT, mostly, RAS ISPs, web sites are all trying to differentiate themselves. How about doing it by offering reliability and speed before content? It took IBM years with their big iron, but RAS is right up there now, in priority, with performance and price. Sun is in the tent now, also, and Intel is making a lot of noise about RAS in their chip and infrastructure designs for both IA32 and IA64. They, and their more systems design oriented boxmaker partners, like IBM and Compaq, are getting there fast, on the Intel based stuff. The E-Commerce companies will get there someday. OTOH, how can an ebay or an Amazon not be there now? Their entire business depends on their servers staying up. (I think ebay is doing it now, the aftermath of all the publicity on their outages made it pretty clear they're trying), don't know about Amazon. The ISPs will for sure take longer. ON TOPIC: OK local splitsville historians, what are the predictions? Regards, Tony