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Technology Stocks : General Lithography -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Katherine Derbyshire who wrote (896)	3/12/1998 11:28:00 AM
From: Volsi Mimir	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1305

KD Good day In your brief of your last article (portion below)you mentioned gates and sharpness (electron dissipation (my comment)).Here is a link to Cymer and BillyG has a new news item on Hatachi's tools.Does Hatachi's electron microscopic tool HD 2000 address the metrology issue that one could tell if that (bleeding) is happening. Message 3684205 <<<Briefly, smaller transistors (below about .10 micron channel length) start to run into physical limitations because the insulator starts to "leak" electrons as it gets thinner. Too much leakage, and the switching behavior is lost. To maintain acceptable properties, new insulator materials are needed, but oxide (SiO2) is familiar and easy to work with. Other materials are likely to be much tricker, and require substantial R&D. Likewise, for very short channels, current from the source and drain electrodes starts to "bleed" into the gate region, causing the transistor's switching behavior to round off, rather than being sharp. (Difficult to explain without knowing your background.) New transistor designs are one way to solve this problem, new materials are another.>>>> eddyb

To: Katherine Derbyshire who wrote (896)	3/12/1998 1:05:00 PM
From: SemiBull	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1305

Katherine and Crossy, Thanks very much for the analysis. I've been holding SVGI for a while now - bought on the downside back in '96. My concern has been whether they can ramp up to 200 machines per annum. The argument from management has been, "if we build it, they will come... and buy." I had that sense, along with the perspective that they had a technical edge on the step & scan niche for the 0.25 DUV market. However, their recent press release has led some to question what is going on behind the scenes - they attributed this coming Q's shortfall on the Asian flu, eventhough they have close to no marketshare in SEA. The question that remains in my mind is whether management's mantra is better suited to a Kevin Costner movie than the litho market. Thanks again....SemiBull