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To: Dale Knipschield who wrote (14215)	5/31/1998 10:16:00 AM
From: Robert F. Newton	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17305

Buyer Beware!!!!!!!!!! exchange2000.com

To: Dale Knipschield who wrote (14215)	6/2/1998 1:43:00 PM
From: Andrew Vance	Respond to of 17305

AV--I read the story and tend to agree with your assessment about a computer "explosion" this coming XMAS season. The drop in prices will affect the bottom lines of INTC and AMD more dramatically than that of IDTI, IMO. Also, it would appear that at the 233-300 MHz levels, IDTI could be a nice player in that market. As far as the disk drive guys are concerned, I also agree with your timetable. Because Disk drives are a rapidly self obsoleting commodity, no one carries a great deal of inventory. With new and higher capacities hiting the market almost on a monthly basis, you would expect the volumes sold would coincide with building of finished system inventories to meet the XMAS demand. I would like to point out that both DELL and Gateway should also prosper this coming XMAS season since they are two very successful "build to oder" companies. As a matter of fact, I find the "build to order" companies the most attractive since, at these prices, all buyers should opt to get EXACTLY what they want in their systems and not settle for options or older technologies they really do not want. The Gateway GP6-400 I am drooling over has fallen close to $300 in the configuration I desire and has broken through the $3000 barrier fully configured. By XMAS I hope it either falls to just below $2500 or $2000 or that added functions and comonents are possible at the present price. Actually I would love to see the 21" monitor as my personal "upgrade" from the 19" monitor offered. Andrew BTW-while looking at the link you posted, I linked from that link to another spot and thought this worthy of sharing to the community. Novellus offers copper chip gear By Reuters Special to CNET NEWS.COM June 2, 1998, 4:50 a.m. PT Novellus, a maker of semiconductor production equipment, will unveil today a full line of systems for chipmakers to manufacture faster semiconductors using next-generation copper technology. Last September, IBM surprised the semiconductor industry with news that it created faster, lower-cost semiconductors, using copper instead of aluminum as an electrical conducting material. Since then, other chipmakers have been looking at copper technology to design faster semiconductors. Chip equipment makers are also leading the way since special equipment is needed to develop these faster semiconductors. Novellus of San Jose, California, first announced its plans to develop equipment for making chips with copper technology last year. Today it will introduce its Damascus product line. "As the geometries [in semiconductor manufacturing] have gotten smaller, there is a need to change materials," said Richard Hill, the chairman and CEO of Novellus. "The world is now moving to copper." One of the centerpieces in Novellus's launch today is a new chip production system called Sabre, which has a starting price of $3 million. This "deposition" system deposits the actual copper interconnect onto a chip, in one of many steps in the intricate semiconductor manufacturing process. Novellus said it is already taking orders for its new systems, which will ship in volume in the third and fourth quarters. "The capacity with IBM is not very large, it may be another year before it picks up and other integrated circuit makers use it on a big scale," said Risto Puhakka, a director at VLSI Research, a market research firm in San Jose, California. "But that means that it's time for equipment purchases now." But not everyone is convinced that copper is a sure thing, especially when it comes to manufacturing chips in large volume. Chipmakers will also have to install new copper equipment in what are already costly manufacturing plants, replacing several hundreds of millions of dollars of equipment. Applied Materials, the world's largest maker of semiconductor equipment, is exploring both Novellus's copper manufacturing process and another etching process that more closely models current techniques. "What we are trying to do is look at a way for fabs to have an easy transition to copper metallurgy," said Christopher Moran, general manager of the etch division at Applied. Applied is presenting its alternative process at an engineering conference this week. Applied has also said it will have a total copper system by the end of this year.