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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Paul V. who wrote (10560)	11/8/1997 10:37:00 PM
From: Big Bucks	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

PV, By-and-large I would say your interpretations/assessments are fairly correct. Dave Dhillon and I agree that 8" fabs will be around for quite a while longer than 2000 since fabs will use engineering design changes to improve the equipment performance as far as yeilds and device shrinks. It is conceivable that a 200mm fab could attain 0.18uM device geometries with some strategic investment in new, leading edge, equipment by replacing equipment that can't "meet the mission", this would insure that they are maximizing the performance capabilities in order to compete in the chip market. This does two things 1. minimizes the cost of having to build new fabs and equip them. 2. maximizes the "bang for the buck" on equipment that they already have and are supporting with spare parts, training, consumable parts, and engineering experience. This allows for full depreciation of the equipment which means they are producing wafers cheaper than they could with new investment, in other words, they are producing wafers free of new/additional overhead costs. This is equivalent to driving a car that is paid off, you get all the benefits of driving without a car payment, you just need to add gas and maintain the car until it isn't worth it anymore, during which time you can save for a new car and pay cash from the savings. Just my opinion, BB

To: Paul V. who wrote (10560)	11/9/1997 2:32:00 AM
From: Kumar Nathan	Respond to of 70976

Paul: Currently fabs are having a dilemma. There needs to be a lot of handholding that are being adopted between the equipment vendors and fabs. Fabs are forced to upgrade to .25 mu and sub microns tools. But the processing is not yer proved to be of production level. Secondly higher level management are debating whether to migrate to 8" wafer tools of .25 mu or their version in 300mm. Paul it is not a easy decision to migarate to 300mm. It is not only changing the tools. It is like changing the entire fab. Even the sink which washes wafers during processing need to be changed. Even the overhead wafer transporting system need to be changed. The caddy ( I dont know the name) which carries a bunch of wafers weighs twice with 300mm than with normal 8"wafer. Fab managers realize this and are determined to go towards 300mm from 1998 onwards. I talk to few european fabs. They plan on facilitizing for 300mm by Q2 of next year. Therefore the order will start to happen by Q3 or Q4 of next year. IMO 1998 is going to be blockbuster year for equipment sector and test equipment companies like EBeam and FIB companies. I hope I answered most of your questions. Regards Kumar