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Technology Stocks : Cymer (CYMI) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: FJB who wrote (24854)	5/1/2000 7:13:00 AM
From: blake_paterson	Respond to of 25960

Robert: Yes, and thanks for the clarification. BP

To: FJB who wrote (24854)	5/1/2000 2:11:00 PM
From: FJB	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25960

semiconbay.com When will optical lithography finally cease in its usefulness to the semiconductor industry? Take your best guess - bet it's 2007 to 2009. In a presentation on "The Future of Lithography and Mask Making" at last week's Strategic Business Conference (SBC) 2000 in Lakeway, Texas, Nigel Farrar noted that technologists have been predicting and anticipating the end of optical lithography for years. And optical lithography has always pushed on past predicted limits, said Farrar, the director of lithography applications for Cymer Inc. (www.cymer.com), a San Diego-based supplier of excimer laser illumination sources used in deep-ultraviolet (DUV) lithography equipment. The end of optical lithography is "always seven to nine years out," Farrar noted. "There's no end in sight, apparently." In a slide attributed to John Sturtevant of Motorola Inc.'s Advanced Product Research and Development Laboratory (APRDL) in Austin, Texas, Farrar showed that industry technologists in 1976 predicted the end of optical lithography in 1985. Every year since then, the industry consensus has been that optical lithography's demise is just around the corner - in seven to nine years. While technological tricks like phase-shifting masks have theoretically extended the usefulness of optical lithography to IC features as fine as 50 nanometers (0.05 micron), using the 157nm wavelength of light, the era of optical lithography will someday come to an end, and next-generation lithography (NGL) technology will take over, according to Farrar. He suggested the semiconductor industry may resort to "hybrid lithography," using both optical and electron-beam technology, at some point, before going completely over to NGL. ...