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

To: Robert Scott who wrote (6598)	10/26/1997 11:15:00 AM
From: BillyG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25960

Maybe I'm off base with this but here goes. The .25 micron has to do with the wafer thickness. The thinner the wafer, the more wafers that can be layered, the more circuits that can therefore be put in chips. Cymer permits an even smaller, thinner etching in the wafer that is required with the thinner wafer. Hence, the move to thinner wafers (.25 micron) will require thinner circuits which can be provided with Cymers lazers. The margin efficiencies come from being able to put more power on the chips that commands a higher price which costs a fraction more to produce. Sorry Robert, .25 micron does not result in thinner wafers. It refers to the size of the patterns that can be created on the wafers. Creative try, though. :-) The cost for processing a wafer through a certain number of steps is essentially a fixed cost/wafer. With smaller features such as .25 micron, you can pack more chip dies on a wafer, resulting in a lower cost per die. The smaller die is sold at the same price as the larger one, resulting in higher margins.

To: Robert Scott who wrote (6598)	10/27/1997 1:09:00 AM
From: Tim Bagwell	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25960

Robert, I don't know how you made this connection but when we talk about .25 um or .1 um etc. we are referring to the width of the smallest feature that can be patterned on the wafer. This feature is usually a line of metal such as aluminum and usually forms the base or gate of a transistor. The feature is usually imaged from a mask (negative or positive polarity) onto photoresist that has been spun on the suraface of the wafer. The laser exposes the resist with the mask pattern. Development of the resist then removes the unwanted resist material leaving holes. Metal may then be deposited onto the surface of the wafer through the resist holes. Of course, there are many variations on this theme and some are much more complex but this is the basic idea. Wafer thickness is usually chosen for more mundane reasons such as strength or in some cases thickness may be minimized so that holes may be etched through. Hope that helps clear it up.