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Technology Stocks : ASML Holding NV -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: dr_elis who wrote (1106)	4/20/2006 3:02:59 PM
From: niek	Respond to of 43176

ASML to ship 70 immersion lithography tools by end of 2007! Thursday, 20 April 2006 FabTech ASML has stated that it expects to have shipped 70 193nm ArF immersion lithography tools by the end of 2007, giving the company around a 70 percent market share in the technology, according to Eric Maurice, President and CEO of ASML, during a conference call with financial analysts to discuss 1Q06 results. This builds on the shipments expected in 2006, which the company had previously put at between 20 and 25 units but now feels that it could slightly exceed that number by the end of the year. Currently ASML has an immersion tool backlog valued at 120 million Euros on tools with an average ASP of 23 to 25 million Euros. Total backlog has reached 1.6 billion Euros but due to the cycle-time reduction programs, the company expects to ship 85 percent of this backlog in the next six months! Lead times between order received and tool shipped for immersion systems at ASML are between 6 and 9 months but with emphasis on 6. This has reduced by several months compared to last year. New orders that arrive even now are expected to ship this year, according to Maurice. Currently ASML has shipped one 1700i production immersion tool in the 1Q06, believed to heading for Samsung, Korea. The company expects to ship more than 10 units in 3Q06 and less than 10 units in 4Q06 to waiting customers. The potential sales pipeline is also back to the levels set in 2004. Currently the company is tracking 24 new fab tool install schedules, while the company is bidding on 21 of those new fabs. 16 are memory fabs, 8 Flash fabs, 3 DRAM/NAND combined fabs and the others are logic fabs. Maurice also noted that major foundries had started to increase orders due to continued tight capacity utilization. In Q405, foundry orders made up 17 percent of orders yet this had risen to 22 percent in 1Q06. Shipments to foundries will therefore be staggered throughout 2006. Concern over an overheating in the memory sector were dampened down by Maurice who believed that memory companies CapEx was front of year loaded and would therefore not be sustained throughout the year.

To: dr_elis who wrote (1106)	4/20/2006 3:04:05 PM
From: niek	Respond to of 43176

Intel on its own with ‘dry’ double patterning Thursday, 20 April 2006 FabTech As has been widely reported for some time ASML expects to ship between 20 and 25, 193 ArF immersion lithography tools during 2006. However, concern over these projections appeared straight after Intel Corp announced at the SPIE Microlithography Conference at the end of February 2006, that the company would not as expected adopt immersion at the 45nm node, rather it would be pushing out immersion to the 32nm node, while remaining ‘dry' and adopt double patterning techniques in the meantime. As one of ASML's largest customers, especially in respect to DUV lithography and the technology node migration leader, it was long assumed that Intel would migrate to immersion ahead of many other chip manufacturers. The numbers quoted by ASML were assumed by many to include an initial order from Intel. With that now not the case, the latest conference call with financial analysts was all the more remarkable in that the company reiterated that its 20 to 25 immersion tool shipments expected for 2006 were still on track. ASML executives hinted that the company may indeed exceed that figure, based on the quotation levels the company is receiving! So, with immersion lithography not catching a cold with other chip manufacturers who now seem unconcerned about the defect levels on the wafers due to the immersion process, is Intel going down the wrong path by staying ‘dry'? Intel's need to have good yields under a capacity constrained atmosphere is understandable but it is also going to take a throughput hit with double patterning. No, its not double the cycle time at the litho and track steps, but it is a hit! ASML's Eric Maurice stated in the conference call that he was not concerned about Intel's or other IC manufacturers using the double patterning technique instead of immersion and partially joked about the fact that this simply means companies will need twice the number of ArF ‘dry' tools, so he was happy both ways! How big a hit Intel will have to take on cycle times is yet to be fully understood and perhaps more importantly how much impact this would have on them should AMD find immersion both defect comparable with ‘dry' lithography but gain the throughput advantage at significantly lower cost than its only real rival! Going it alone or first to try something out as proven to be very costly in the semiconductor industry throughout its history. Currently Intel stands alone on using double patterning, while other leading-edge manufacturers are embracing immersion lithography. ASML stated that it now expects to ship 70 immersion tools in 2007, on top of the 25 plus units in 2006. Nikon expects to ship 15 immersion tools this year, one to Intel for evaluation. What is clear is that the other leading chip manufacturers are going to using immersion tools in production in 2007 and some may actually be used late in 2006! Intel is in trouble of catching a cold that could lead to pneumonia!