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

To: James Word who wrote (12611)	1/14/1998 10:12:00 PM
From: Gary Hoyer	Respond to of 25960

This further drives home the point that Excimer based .25um DUV is NEXT GENERATION lithography and all the talk of X-ray and EUV is WAY WAY out there in terms of being used in production (read no threat to Cymer for many many moons). I still stand by my stake in the ground that this will be Cymer's year. Gary.

To: James Word who wrote (12611)	1/14/1998 10:33:00 PM
From: Robert DeHaven	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25960

James: What about Lucents plans for chip fab?.....(eom)

To: James Word who wrote (12611)	1/14/1998 10:36:00 PM
From: FJB	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 25960

James, RE: how soon? One of the clues I've been using for determining the use of excimer lasers is the production ramp of 64Mb DRAM. Without a true 0.25um process, the die size of a 64Mb is around 200mm&#176. They pretty much have to use DUV for volume production. That being said, here are some numbers for the 64Mb ramp. satellite.nikkei.co.jp What are the flaws with this simplistic analysis James? Bob

To: James Word who wrote (12611)	1/14/1998 10:36:00 PM
From: FJB	Respond to of 25960

James, RE: how soon? One of the clues I've been using for determining the use of excimer lasers is the production ramp of 64Mb DRAM. Without a true 0.25um process, the die size of a 64Mb is around 200mm&#178. They pretty much have to use DUV for volume production. That being said, here are some numbers for the 64Mb ramp. satellite.nikkei.co.jp What are the flaws with this simplistic analysis James? Bob

To: James Word who wrote (12611)	1/14/1998 11:59:00 PM
From: Yakov Lurye	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 25960

Re: commercial DUV deployment timetable James, I'd been posting questions about commercial DUV applications for a while myself, wondering why CYMER PR doesn't release any information about CYMER lasers used to produce some advanced chips (seemingly, this would be a great PR and would not interfere with any non-disclosure requirements imposed by lithography companies). Eventually, I'd come to a conclusion that 1997 is a bit early for commercial applications to come on line, but in a few months we should hear more about them - hope that's not a wishful thinking. Consider the AMD case: they were probably one of the first companies experimenting with DUV. I would guess that they have been working on DUV at least since early 1997 - witness a July article describing their experience with DUV lasers (and one of the issues raised in that article was that introduction of DUV requires massive process reengineering, production line balancing etc.). They are under a lot of pressure, yet just starting the .25 ramp up. Thus, I'd venture a guess that there is at least a year delay between receiving DUV equipment for trials and getting into commercial applications. It may be my wishful thinking, but the lack of running commercial applications NOW does not mean that companies are not ordering multiple DUV systems for the second half of 1998 - early 1999. Given the delays, orders for lasers needed in 2H98 - early 1999 should form the current backlog. Of course, the inventory levels at stepper manufacturers may affect their ordering policies. The only relevant piece of information on this topic came from CC when the management suggested that about 50% of lasers shipped before the conference were already working in trial systems. It may be useful to study the list of companies ordering trial systems - most likely, these are near-future DUV users. A post listing companies working with CYMER equipment appeared a few days ago. All I recall (off the top of my head) is that CYMER had far more customers in Taiwan than in Korea. I'll try to locate this post, also there should be a partial listing in 10K. The size and geography of companies on this list may provide some insights into the near-term DUV market. Regards, Y.