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To: Tony Viola who wrote (142062)	8/20/2001 8:48:14 PM
From: Jim McMannis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

More real estate deals coming.... ------------ Monday August 20 07:12 PM EDT Excite@Home Warns SEC of Its Financial Peril By Jay Lyman, www.NewsFactor.com Amid job cuts and toppling stock value, cable Internet giant Excite@Home (Nasdaq: ATHM - news) has conceded it may be in financial trouble in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (news - web sites) (SEC) filing. The Redwood City, California-based company -- primarily a cable Internet service provider (ISP) and Web portal -- indicated in the filing last week that it may not have enough cash to stay in business through the end of this year. "We have not yet completed any transactions [to sell or restructure media operations or financing transactions], and there can be no assurance that we will be successful in achieving sufficient cash conservation measures, completing strategic transactions or otherwise raising sufficient additional funds to finance our operations on a timely basis," the SEC filing said. Job Cuts and Stock Drops Excite@Home, which already has cut more than 600 jobs to reduce costs this year, announced that another planned round of 200 cuts will not be its last. "We expect to undertake further restructuring efforts in the third quarter of 2001 that may result in the elimination of additional positions, but it is too early to determine the impact of these actions," the company said. Word of the company's financial uncertainty prompted analysts, such as Merrill Lynch's Henry Blodget, to warn that Excite@Home may be delisted and face even more debt as a result. Blodget warned that the company risks "immediate bankruptcy" from financing moves following its June sale of US$100 million worth of stock to stay alive. That deal requires the company to be listed on a major stock exchange, but Excite@Home has fallen below the minimum requirements for net assets, stockholders' equity and share price imposed by the Nasdaq stock exchange. Excite@Home stock fell Monday to a one-year low of 45 cents per share, down from its 52-week high of $18.56. Cable Up, Portal Down Created in 1999 through the merger of cable Internet company At Home and portal Excite, Excite@Home is the largest provider of cable Internet service. It is controlled by AT&T (NYSE: T - news), which has a 74 percent voting stake and 23 percent of stock in the company. Cable broadband subscriptions have continued to grow, bringing Excite@Home 75 percent more revenue than last year, according to the company. On the other hand, the portal side of the business -- which includes content creation and distribution -- has suffered as Internet advertising revenue has evaporated. Changes on the Way "They bet heavily on broadband being a portal perspective, and it never took place," Gartner Group analyst Whit Anderson told NewsFactor Network. "They may have planned their broadband excellence too soon." Anderson said the company already has proven it is not afraid to take risks and may find a way to come up with the cash it needs, although it is likely to change in the process. "They face substantial challenges in finding their way to a business model that will sustain them for the long term," he said. "Do they have an extraordinary asset -- yes, but that asset will probably look very, very different."

To: Tony Viola who wrote (142062)	8/21/2001 11:27:49 AM
From: fingolfen	Respond to of 186894

Fingolfen, on gate widths and what can be done to improve them with or without the new steppers, thanks for explaining in non-heavy duty process engineering terms. Now I know what is meant by AMD having possibly "shot their wad" somewhat before getting to 0.13. Looking through the literature, there are two common methods. The first is phase shift masks. A normal lithographic plate is "glass" and chrome. Light won't go through the chrome, but it will go through the glass. A phase shift mask is more complex. It is still glass and chrome, but it also has regions etched into the glass. These regions are recessed so light waves will exit the other side of the plate 180 degrees out of phase with the light that goes through the full thickness of the glass. This causes destructive interference of the light which can be useful in patterning. The advantage to phase shifting is that you can extend an older technology for a longer period of time. The disadvantage to phase shifting is that it makes the process very sensitive to focus drift. Another one I've read about is a resist etchback. Before the underlying film is etched, the resist itself is subjected to an etch. In theory, if you get a stable enough etchrate you can really shrink the linewidths. In practice you hit a minimum where lines start being etched away. Presumably there are other tricks out there as well (resist curing might work, etc.), but they all have their own pratfalls. When the lines are shrunk, you need to maintain the quality of the line as well. It's better to have a 70nm straight line than a 50nm wavy line.