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Technology Stocks : Applied Materials No-Politics Thread (AMAT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (8294)	12/12/2003 10:44:32 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25522

Heard on the Beat: Black diamonds seen at IBM, Chartered By C.V. Dee Silicon Strategies 12/11/2003, 3:30 PM ET Black diamonds have been spotted at IBM Corp.'s Microelectronics Division and Singapore's Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Pte. Ltd. Not the usual rough cut of diamonds, but rather in the form of low-k dielectrics for advanced chip-production. In fact, sources believe that IBM and Chartered will deploy Applied Materials Inc.'s CVD-based low-k materials at the 90-nm node. Applied's low-k materials are called Black Diamond. As previously reported, Chartered is deploying IBM's 90-nm process technology within its own fabs in Singapore. But it was widely believed that IBM and Chartered would deploy Novellus Systems Inc.'s CVD-based low-k materials at the 90-nm node. Novellus' low-k materials are known as Coral. After all, Chartered is using Coral at the 130-nm node and that material was the likely choice for the IBM-developed 90-nm process. IBM itself scrapped its own efforts to use a spin-on material for low-k, which was provided by Dow. If Black Diamond makes it into IBM and Chartered, then the event is a major coup for Applied. The chip-equipment giant is selling its low-k solution to Motorola, Toshiba, TSMC, among others.