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

To: StanX Long who wrote (13158)	1/28/2004 11:52:49 PM
From: StanX Long	Respond to of 95865

Immersion could extend to 22-nm node, says TSMC exec Silicon Strategies 01/28/2004, 5:00 AM ET LOS ANGELES -- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. plans to introduce immersion lithography for critical layers of the 65-nm node, starting in the middle of 2005, said Burn Lin, senior director of the micropatterning technology division at TSMC. Lin added that with alternative liquids the technology could extend 193-nm wavelength lithography to the 22-nm manufacturing process node. As announced in December, TSMC has ordered a 193-nm immersion scanner from Dutch lithography vendor ASML Holding NV (Veldhoven, Netherlands). Plans call for the 193i system to be installed in September at TSMC's Fab 12, a 300-mm facility. TSMC (Hsinchu, Taiwan) initially plans to use the immersion tool for the polysilicon gate formation and contact layers at the 65-nm node. It is expected to enter what TSMC calls "risk production" in mid-2005. While some companies plan to use "dry" 193 scanners for the 65-nm node, Lin said "our thinking is that if we have the tool, we would be foolish not to use it." In an interview here at the International Sematech immersion lithography workshop, Lin said a dry 193-nm tool provides a depth of focus of about 180-nm, while an immersion tool with the same 0.85 NA (numerical aperture) lens is expected to have a depth of focus of about 380-nm. That will allow a much better process window to deal with any lens aberration, tilting or wafer flatness issues, he said. Lin said he believes 193-nm immersion lithography can be extended much further than earlier expected. Catadioptric lenses, which mix refractive and reflective optics, will further boost the depth of focus. Also, new liquids are being studied that extend the refractive index to the 1.6 regime, compared with 1.43 for purified water. The catadioptric lenses and new immersion fluids, could combine to push the numerical aperture to 1.6 or so. That would make 157-nm scanners with immersion techniques unnecessary, he said, and could also push out extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography so far that it might never be introduced, largely for cost reasons. "The 193 immersion extensions are much less of a change in the infrastructure than the 157-nm or EUV systems would be. If we can come up with a fluid with a refractive index of 1.6, we can forget about 157 immersion, because that fluid would take 193 immersion into the 22-nm territory. And that makes the EUV people very unhappy," said Lin. Lin is considered an early pioneer in immersion lithography. He worked on the approach during a 22-year career at IBM Corp., and has promoted immersion lithography for use at TSMC, which he joined in 2000. During a morning session on Tuesday (January 27) at the Sematech-organized workshop, Bruce Smith of the Rochester Institute of Technology, and Will Conley, a Motorola assignee to Sematech, separately reported on early investigations into new immersion fluids. Doping water with phosphoric acid appears to be the most promising, Lin said.

To: StanX Long who wrote (13158)	1/29/2004 8:09:37 PM
From: pompsander	Respond to of 95865

UPDATE - TSMC profit jumps six fold, sees peak coming Thursday January 29, 6:06 am ET By Michael Kramer (Recasts, adds chairman's comments, details) TAIPEI, Jan 29 (Reuters) - TSMC, the world's largest contract microchip maker, posted quarterly earnings on Thursday that vaulted six fold back to boom-time levels, saying the highly cyclical chip industry would further surge to a peak in 2004. ADVERTISEMENT The strong results for the chip-industry bellwether met market expectations and underscored the sector's recovery from a lengthy slump as consumers snap up gadgets such as camera phones and flat-panel televisions. "This is still early summer in the cycle, so we are still preparing for the (peak)," Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) (Taiwan:2330.TW - News; NYSE:TSM - News) Chairman Morris Chang told an investor conference. Chang said TSMC estimated global semiconductor revenues would rise 26 percent in 2004, higher than the 20 percent consensus growth forecast by analysts. "I think what's really quite exciting is that Morris said that the industry would grow 26 percent this year... we would expect TSMC to exceed that," said Deutsche Securities semiconductor analyst Johnny Chen. TSMC said net profit was T$16 billion (US$479 million) in October-December, compared with T$2.55 billion in the fourth quarter of 2002, and analysts' expectations of T$15.99 billion. The earnings were the best in three years and come off a dismal year-earlier period when inventories were bulging from a false dawn in mid-2002 following a record revenue plunge for the chip industry in 2001. TSMC said that while all sectors were showing growth, communications products were expected to be the main driver this year -- from processors for picture-snapping cell phones to chips used in telephone and Internet networks. Mobile phone chip makers Texas Instruments Inc (NYSE:TXN - News), Motorola Inc (NYSE:MOT - News) and Qualcomm Inc (NasdaqNM:QCOM - News) -- all customers of TSMC -- or competitor UMC (Taiwan:2303.TW - News; NYSE:UMC - News), have uniformly given upbeat forecasts for the current quarter. CORPORATE DEMAND EYED In addition, shares in telecom equipment firms jumped early this month after Nortel Networks Corp (Toronto:NT.TO - News) struck a deal with Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ - News), raising hopes that big phone companies are willing to spend money on technology again. TSMC, which is nearly one-fifth owned by the Netherlands' Philips Electronics NV (Amsterdam:PHG.AS - News) announced its quarterly results after close of trade in Taipei on Thursday. However, investors had priced in the solid earnings as the issue fell 1.48 percent to T$66.5 on Thursday, while the main TAIEX (Taiwan:^TWII - News) share index declined 1.15 percent. TSMC's shares, along with those of United Microelectronics Corp (UMC), have advanced 70 percent since an April 2003 low when the region was hit by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak. The Philadelphia Stock Exchange semiconductor index (Philadelphia:^SOXX - News) rose 72 percent over the same period. TSMC's Chang expected shipments in the first quarter to be one to five percent higher than the last three months of 2003, but would be offset by average selling prices (ASP) that would fall as much as 5.5 percent. Chang said gross profit margin would be unchanged in the first quarter from the fourth, and capacity utilisation would be around 100 percent, or higher. Capital expenditure was set at US$2 billion for 2004, up from US$1.2 billion last year and in line with analyst expectations. "The company and the industry are all in an uptrend, which is in line with expectations," said Grace Yao, a fund manager at JF Asset Management, which has about US$3 billion under management. "Some said that the gross margin could be hurt as ASP could fall below expectations. But the number today shows the gross margin is still 39 percent and that is pretty good."