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Technology Stocks : INVX Innovex Comdex Winner !! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Douglas V. Fant who wrote (2292)	3/17/1998 1:54:00 AM
From: Box-By-The-Riviera™	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3029

as usual, nice information doug thanks joel

To: Douglas V. Fant who wrote (2292)	3/17/1998 2:36:00 PM
From: Mark Oliver	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3029

Doug, is there a question between who will provide the wire and who will provide the machine to do the wiring? If so, I noticed you didn't mention the efforts of Kullicke& Soffa, who are one of the larger, older companies involved in traditional wire bonding. If there is a wire issue, won't success depend on agreements with companies like K&S to get an installed base of machines capable of using Innovex's product? Afterall, I don't think we are going to see Innovex become a machine vendor. Second, this is an excerpt from a newsletter I get discussing semiconductor equipment vendors like K&S. I thought it was useful in that it recognizes the issue, but doesn't set a goal yet for utilization. This slowness to discuss the problem of shrinking sizes and flip chips is interesting. It either signals the product is still to far into the future, or the investment community is missing a great investment. All panel members were familiar with the SIA Technology Roadmap and its implications to their businesses. For assembly and handling equipment, the critical elements are the size of the packages and the number of pins per package. For wire bonders, capacity is driven by the product of units times pincount since each individual wire has to be bonded. Smaller packages mean tighter tolerances required by pick and place systems. Faster and denser chips mean higher power dissipation which also challenges the packaging and handling industries. Clearly, the trend to flip-chip and chip scale packages will have an effect on the industry, but it was felt that these will not detract significantly from conventional wire bonded packages for another three to five years. Wafer probers and laser repair systems are the only TAP products to be directly affected by increases in wafer size. Both Electroglas and ESI are preparing for 300mm and do not see this as a major hurdle - just an opportunity for re-tooling. Another interesting point I ran across yesterday was a comment in the ESI conference call about how many small capacitors and resistors are getting so small and cheap, it is cheaper to buy the part than install it. So, they are moving more and more to arrays that can install multiple parts in one action. On a cost basis, are flip chips going to be expensive solutions used only for special circumstances until the procedure matures? Regards, Mark