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

To: Big Bucks who wrote (17391)	1/23/2006 8:58:53 PM
From: etchmeister	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25522

Nobody suggested an immediate rush towards 450mm rather suggesting start to take larger wafer size into consideration whenever it is possible. Development for new technology will be very high regardless of wafer size. Therefore the question is would it make sense to develop new technology for larger substrate - develop new technology at 300mm but keep scalibilty to 450 mm in mind. I gave Lam as an example: When Lam's AutoEtch 480 came out 4 inch was more or less mainstream but this machine was already laid out to handle 6 inch wafers. AutoEtch 480 = 4 (for) the 80 (eighties) - for the eighties - brilliant; a couple of numbers had actually a meaning; Industry not ready for 450-mm, says Applied Mark LaPedus EE Times (01/10/2006 1:18 PM EST) HALF MOON BAY, Calif. — Mike Splinter, president and chief executive of Applied Materials Inc., warned that the semiconductor equipment industry is not ready to move full speed ahead and develop next-generation, 450-mm tools due to a funding shortfall in the overall business. Splinter also warned that the funding shortfall for equipment R&D could reach $20 billion by 2012 if current technology and economic trends continue. “This presents a problem with our industry,” Splinter said in a keynote address at the Industry Strategy Symposium (ISS) event here on Tuesday (Jan. 10). As a result of this shortfall, the semiconductor-equipment industry must focus and spend its R&D dollars more wisely, he said. The Applied executive suggested that the industry could spend its R&D dollars in three areas: improve the installed base; develop future technologies; and devise the next-generation 450-mm wafer size. Chip makers will eventually move into the 450-mm domain, but the industry cannot afford to develop tools for the next-generation wafer size in the near term, he said. At least one company, Intel Corp., is urging the industry to migrate towards 450-mm fabs in the 2012 to 2014 time frame. “I think we should focus on other things than a wafer size conversion,” he said. “We need to do it eventually. I don’t think we currently need to do this.” Instead, the IC-equipment industry “should focus on high returns” with their respective R&D dollars, he said. The industry should be investing in several areas, including lithography productivity, systematic defect elimination, among others, he said.