Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Tony Viola who wrote (46171)	5/3/2001 5:25:56 PM
From: Cary Salsberg	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

How many chips? That is how many wafers and how many chips/ wafer and what is the yield per wafer. Another question is what is the capacity utilization. How many chips compared to how many possible chips. There are only 4 leading US front end companies: AMAT, KLAC, LRCX, NVLS. There is only 1 leading US/European front end lithography company: ASML/SVGI. Since these companies are intimately involved in supplying the key technology to the chip makers including participation in developing process technology and achieving yields and since a fab line is a coordination of multi-vendors tools with various order lead times, it is not surprising that the equip guys have their finger on the pulse of the industry.

To: Tony Viola who wrote (46171)	5/4/2001 1:07:55 AM
From: Katherine Derbyshire	Respond to of 70976

You can tell how many wafers a particular process tool is running by how often it needs maintenance. Maintenance results in orders for process kits and/or service calls. Yield problems also result in service calls. NVLS in particular is famous for fanatical tracking of its equipment performance metrics. I suspect the company has a very good idea of how many wafers are being run on its equipment vs. the theoretical maximum capacity for that equipment. Katherine