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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Moderated Thread - please read rules before posting -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: quartersawyer who wrote (71257)	11/15/2007 10:51:10 PM
From: quartersawyer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 197660

Art-- I see this year's slide calls it "longer term initiatives". Last year it was "4+ years", to profitability. I'm not sure what longer term initiatives is in time or money. The 41% that is "pre-revenue" is I guess "even longer" initiatives. If last year was right, MEMS is now a 3+ year thing.

To: quartersawyer who wrote (71257)	11/15/2007 11:08:17 PM
From: pheilman_	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 197660

The MEMS products and samples I saw at the analyst meeting yesterday are far more advanced and closer to production than one might have believed when the first samples were demonstrated last March Having spent four years working on a MEMS based product I think I can add to the discussion. Two issues plague MEMS designs: stiction/welding, and charging. Stiction occurs whenever the MEMS comes into contact and subsequently will not separate. Charging changes the behavior of MEMS to control voltages over time due to various surface charges, usually assumed to be water. The scientists at my company had worked on a "light valve" based on a moving ribbon. The ribbons tended to weld themselves down whenever they were placed in the down position. The group that has solved this is Texas Instruments with their DLP, they seem to use a special metal at the tips of their mirrors to prevent stiction when the mirrors are tilted. TI spent a long time and a lot of money solving this problem. DLP operation proves that with enough effort, stiction can be solved, but, TI may have some patents. Charging complicates driving the MEMS device because its response is based on history. The MEMS display can avoid this by having just two discrete, stable, locations. The other issue for a MEMS based display is the size. MEMS are just silicon wafers and they cost >$100 per 300 mm wafer. For a small external display ( <1 in ) about 100 will fit on the wafer, rough silicon cost is $1. For a larger interior display only 10 would fit on the wafer and the yield would be much worse. The cost would be too high for larger displays. --Paul