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Technology Stocks : Cymer (CYMI) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tulvio Durand who wrote (6111)	10/23/1997 9:22:00 PM
From: BillyG	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 25960

Here are my notes from the conference call, organized into categories for easy reading. I think it was a great call!! Orders: -- Emphasized "significant orders" since the end of Q3. (Could this be Intel?) -- Customers want to speed up deliveries for die shrinkage of 16M and 64M DRAM. Competitive front: -- There is no third party verified data on the performance of CYMI vs. competitors' lasers. -- Lambda is the closest known technology competitor (known because it publishes technical papers) -- Komatsu is a "black hole of technical information." -- Both competitors have claimed for years (almost 10 years) that their lasers are better than CYMI's. -- CYMI's lasers are almost always more expensive that the competitors [It was left unsaid that if the competitors' lasers are cheaper and better than CYMI's, then why does CYMI have 90% market share?] -- Third competitor (I couldn't catch the name) has a solid state laser. It is a YAG laser with a frequency multiplier. It has a power problem. It also has a light coherency problem, because it must use multiple laser sources. -- "September problem" -- CYMI cannot comment about some things in detail because of confidentiality agreements it has with customers. Likewise, customers have confidentiality obligations to CYMI. Margins: -- Lower margins in Q3 because: (1) one-time cost for moving to new factory; (2) continuous improvement program (CIP) reserves; and (3) inefficiencies related to shifting production in September. -- At this point, both CYMI and its customers have better knowledge of how to build and use CYMI lasers. -- CYMI expects to see improvement in gross margins beginning in 1Q98. Possible improvement in 4Q97, but hesitant to commit to that because CYMI is still adjusting to the new factory. Future sales/shipments: -- I think that Dataquest forecast a market for 500 DUV lasers in 1998. CYMI said that Dataquest's numbers are accurate, and that one of its customers said that demand in 1998 will be 700 lasers, and that "industry" would not be able to meet that demand. -- By the end of 3Q97, about 160 CYMI lasers had actually been delivered to chipmakers' facilities. -- There were more installs at chipmakers in Q3 than in Q1 and Q2 combined. Next generation: -- continuous improvement process (CIP) is being implemented in next generation lasers. -- CYMI is more than one generation ahead in ArF lasers. CYMI will ship its first prototype of the latest ArF laser before the end of 1997. -- Next generation ArF and KrF lasers will incorporate both "pulse stretching" and "multi-kilohertz operation" technology. CYMI completed significant milestone testing demonstrations during Q3 on this technology, and it recognized $1.4M in revenue from this testing. (Did not say which laser.)

To: Tulvio Durand who wrote (6111)	10/23/1997 9:57:00 PM
From: Ian@SI	Respond to of 25960

Tulvio, re:Hey, who spent $1 million for two DUV lasers for a non-litho application? And what are they being used for? My guess on the second question is P-GUILD, a potential $2 Billion market by the year 2000 Akins was explicit in the conference call. Specifically, he said CYMI has the lead in ArF lasers (the 193nm stuff); that 2 have been delivered to Sematech; that demonstration completion payments of $1.4M were made to CYMI. There are 2 versions of this laser. It sounded to me as if 1 was geared to SVGL's unique optics; the other for the rest of the stepper makers. "P-GUILD" is PGILD. Projection Gas - Immersion Laser Doping. CYMI has declined UTEK's invitation at this time. However, it's nice to know that there's another large market sitting there waiting should this one become saturated or slow down. Ian.

To: Tulvio Durand who wrote (6111)	10/24/1997 2:19:00 AM
From: Mr. Aloha	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25960

I wondered about that but really didn't put two and two together. Thanks. (EOM) Aloha

To: Tulvio Durand who wrote (6111)	10/24/1997 10:19:00 AM
From: nycnpbbkr	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 25960

Cymer lasers have been used for Hewlett Packard inkjet printer head fabrication or R&D in the past. (HP -- Also in Rancho Bernardo.) I would expect that the two orders for the high power version of Cymer's laser is for this purpose. You wouldn't think it but size and position of the inkjet print holes in the cartridge must be very precise. A size variation or a displacement of even 0.1 micron of the holes is visible on the resulting printed page.