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To: Moonray who wrote (11600)	4/13/1998 11:41:00 AM
From: Grand Poobah	Respond to of 25814

Moonray, It does seem somewhat aggressive but not really out of line to be doing 0.13 micron by then, especially if we are talking about the latter half of 2000, which the news release doesn't specify. They say they are doing 0.25-um now at Gresham, which seems reasonably in line with their previous announcements, so 0.18-um by late 1999 and 0.13-um by late 2000 would actually be pretty typical. Technology generations have recently been moving a little faster than one per year, but with the change in steppers needed to go to 0.13-um, one per year is probably reasonable. I am a little skeptical that they would actually be doing 20,000 wafer starts a month at 0.13-um technology in 2000, since that implies full-blown production. (Assume a yield of 500 good die per wafer times 20,000 wafers equals 10 million units a month.) I find it interesting that they aren't moving to 300-mm wafers. I am making the assumption in all this that the news release is referring to a 0.13-um drawn process and not 0.13 L-effective. That makes more sense to me because that would be consistent with Gresham currently going into production on the G11 technology (0.25-um, which is 0.18 L-eff). In fact, although the gate length is the number you always hear mentioned regarding a new process technology, there are other factors that are just as important in determining how sophisticated it is, especially at 0.13-um and below. Interconnect scheme is an increasingly important one (copper or aluminum metallization?, low-k dielectric?, etc.) I didn't see any mention of copper metallization in the news release but find it hard to believe they would still be using aluminum with a 0.13-um process since they would lose all the speed advantage if not more than that which they got from going to smaller gates. G.P.

To: Moonray who wrote (11600)	4/14/1998 1:48:00 AM
From: Duane L. Olson	Respond to of 25814

O~~~o Saw E!'s post. Don't know for sure that LSI can do .13u by Y2K, but here's an interesting little tidbit: When LSI built the new Gresham (OR) plant, Dupont Photomask built a new facility on LSI's grounds, and one of the sidenotes about that facility was that it would pre-install the capability to supply masks down to .13u. (No timeline). Since the Gresham plant will be more advanced than the Japanese one, I would expect to see .13u here first. And I do think it would be possible to bring in .13u for some critical features sometime in 2000, using Argon Fluoride lasers (CYMI). Recent tests at the University of Texas demonstrated (lab only) features at .10u mapped onto a wafer, using a DPMI photomask and an ISI stepper (CYMI ArF laser). So -- don't know if LSI will do it, but it IS possible. Cheers! TSO