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Technology Stocks : Semi Equipment Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Donald Wennerstrom who wrote (667)	6/10/2001 6:08:14 PM
From: Return to Sender	Respond to of 95823

I think you are right. It's nice to see that even when orders are falling innovation is thriving and that Moore's Law continues to show signs of remaining valid. More innovation from IBM that should also help spur semi equipment sales: IBM Has Breakthrough That Boosts Chip Speed dailynews.yahoo.com NEW YORK (Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp.(NYSE:IBM - news) said on Friday it made a breakthrough in semiconductor technology that can boost chip speeds by as much as 35 percent, while also reducing power requirements. Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM, the world's largest computer maker, said it has perfected a way to alter silicon, the basic material used to build microchips, so that it can be stretched, speeding the flow of electrons through the transistors on the chip. The new technology takes advantage of the natural tendency for atoms inside compounds to align with one another. When silicon is deposited on top of a substrate with atoms spaced farther apart, the atoms in silicon stretch to line up with the atoms beneath, stretching -- or ``straining'' -- the silicon. In the strained silicon, IBM said, electrons experience less resistance and flow up to 70 percent faster, which can lead to chips that are up to 35 percent faster -- without having to shrink the size of transistors. IBM will present details of its strained silicon breakthroughs in two technical papers being presented at the Symposium on VLSI Technology in Kyoto, Japan on June 13, 2001. Bijan Davari, vice president of semiconductor development at IBM Microelectronics, said the technology was on an aggressive timetable -- to be available for finished products by 2003. ``That should give us at least a couple of years' lead over the rest of the industry,'' he said. Davari added that the technology reduces power requirements as well as boosting the performance of the chip. IBM AIMS TO BRING INNOVATIONS TO MARKET IBM has for the past several years worked to move innovations made in its research labs quickly to market, where it uses them in its own computers, as well as licensing the technology to rivals. ``We have formed a very efficient organization, to take the innovations out of research and install them in manufacturing at a very rapid pace,'' he said. ``We started that in 1993, and it has been a very successful model. It's not an accident anymore, it's a real system.'' These initiatives continue to be one of the company's most impressive assets, analysts say. ``Microelectronics remains one of the best parts of IBM and, we think, has an opportunity to continue to grow by at least 20 percent going forward, driven primarily by new design wins,'' Goldman Sachs analyst Laura Conigliaro wrote in a note to clients. IBM's microelectronics division now comprises only 6 percent to 7 percent of IBM's total outside sales, Conigliaro said, adding that it shows promise of both high revenue growth and improving profitability. Semiconductors could become 10 percent of sales and 15 percent of profits at IBM in three years, Conigliaro said. Shares of IBM closed on Friday at $116.10, down $1.15.