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To: Candle stick who wrote (15455)	3/5/1998 2:41:00 PM
From: FJB	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25960

ONE company in the world can make these masks well - not in commercial quantities, not cheaply, but in its development labs. Gives you a good indication of where this technology is in terms of its development, doesn't it? YEARS away at best and possibly never to be commercialized.

To: Candle stick who wrote (15455)	3/5/1998 5:28:00 PM
From: Bookdon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25960

The key phrases in the referenced report are: "better than ... gold-based masks" and "are candidate merchant suppliers". This means that IBM has made some tantalum masks, using an IBM-built mask-maker, and an experimental process which is better and cheaper than those they made using the same IBM-built mask maker and a gold-based experimental mask blank (not commercially available). It also means that if a commercially built mask-making tool were available at a reasonable price, DuPont and Photronics might buy one, along with the mask repair and inspection equipment that is not yet available. The time horizon for all of that to occur is five or more years. The likely cost of this equipment set is some $25 to $50 million, which implies a need for selling $25 million worth of x-ray masks per year to make it worth-while for DuPont or Photronics. That would mean that 20 or 30 x-ray steppers would need to be installed somewhere. I really don't want to be a wet blanket, but I hate to see people rush to invest in new-technology payoffs WAY before they are likely to produce profits.