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Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hank Doug who wrote (51034)	3/23/1998 10:55:00 PM
From: Time Traveler	Respond to of 186894

Hank, Copper Technology: This technology is not matured for mass-fabrication of ICs yet. If I were to run a high-tech company with so many competitors, I would keep all my research and development as confidential as possible. IBM is not in the business to produce such high quantity of devices as Intel, so I can understand why IBM wants to hype up their image in the high-tech world. Although I do not know for sure if Intel is pursuing copper technology with full thrust, I do remember the CEO of Intel hinting about Intel knowing quite a bit about this technology. John.

To: Hank Doug who wrote (51034)	3/24/1998 12:26:00 AM
From: IanBruce	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 186894

No copper from Intel. Hank Doug wrote: Does anyone knows for sure if INTC doesnt have any copper technology of their own? If not, maybe INTC will license with MOT for its copper technology. Not likely - and that's from Intel. According to Mark Bohr, Intel Fellow and the director of process architecture and integration in Intel's Portland Technology Development Group: "There's no question copper is good; the question is whether it makes sense to introduce it now." Copper is good? Aluminum's resistivity at 0.25 micron line widths imposes major signal delays. Damn right copper's good. But it's also true that most of Intel's fab is at a fat .35 micron, and is likely to remain that way for some time. More Bohr: "Because it is a new material, you might not be able to be so aggressive with it at first." It's certainly not slowing down IBM or Motorola. Bohr's also said that it's unlikely Intel will ship parts with any new interconnect systems before the early years of the next decade. On the other hand, IBM already introduced the SA-27 family of high-end ASICs using its copper process in January - with volume production beginning in early 1999. IBM's pointed out that its dual-damascene copper process will be less costly than an equivalent aluminum process because it requires fewer process steps (remember that the current of PowerPCs already sell for far less than equivalent Pentiums). Copper also has the advantage of greatly lowering power consumption, as well as reducing circuit size. For its part, Motorola is gearing up to produce it's own high-performance, low-power copper parts later this year. The company's developed a 0.20-micron logic technology optimized for 1.8V operation featuring transistors with a 0.15 micron effective channel length. Bottom line: IBM: Copper process, product & strategy Moto: Copper process & strategy Intel: "we're looking into it." TechWeb 2/25/98. Here's the link: <http://www.techweb.com/se/directlink.cgi?EET19980225S0016> Related link: <http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19980316S0012> Ian Bruce New York, NY