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To: Andrew Vance who wrote (14689)	7/8/1998 4:23:00 PM
From: Andrew Vance	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17305

AV--I expected today's news release by LRCX concerning the Ontrak Copper system. This is typical of some pre-SEMICON West showcasing. Expect to see a barrage of releases from most of these companies over the next week and a half. Pay particularly close attention to the announcements and the volume/price activity of the stocks. This mini-rally may have a great deal to do with "hype" surrounding the show. Keep a close eye of the prices of these stocks from the beginning of this week and compare them to the prices next Friday. Be wary of any large moves since they may lead to a 50-100% retracement of those prices a few weeks down the road when the hoopla is over. We may have this mini-rally or mini-rally in the making more in line with the show than an actual turn around in the industry. Many of the big name companies (I could list if you wish), will have analyst meetings at SEMICON West to tout themselves. Keep this in the back of your mind, THERE WILL BE A HUGE DOG AND PONY SHOW by these companies to generate a great deal of institutional support. The lucky ones will get enough price activity to allow some strategic acquisitions or provide additional lender financing to move forward on certain projects. The big questions that must be asked are: When is 300mm to become a reality??? When do you see your products being introduced for sub 0.25u production?? When does 0.18u and below move from the prototype arena to volume production?? When does DUV become a reality?? When will CMP be implemented across the industry (at what feature sizes)??? When do you expect the new Copper technology to be realistically brought into the high volume mainstream??? When do you realistically see your business turning around?? How long will it take you to ramp up in the event of a recovery?? How long will it take to receruit and re-train those associates that are being laid off now??? What are your backlogs looking like and how much of your backlog are hard orders that cannot be cancelled?? What are your realistic delivery schedules once the Purchase Orders are placed?? (What are your queue times and cycle times??) How vulnerable are you to the YR2K problem, realistically?? Andrew

To: Andrew Vance who wrote (14689)	7/8/1998 4:40:00 PM
From: Andrew Vance	Respond to of 17305

AV--Both ASMLF and CYMI responded real well today (DUV lithography stocks) while AMAT, LRCX, and NVLS floundered a bit. I would keep a close eye on not only CYMI and ASMLF for a trading pattern, relative to each other, but I would also include both PLAB and DPMI in the group. I would suggest that a simple SI CHART with these 4 stocks be monitored by anyone interested in this sector. I would also remind you that both PLAB and DPMI will provide the most real time indication as to how the IC manufacturing industry is performing. Their quarterly reports are as real time as it gets since most of their business is on a 30 day net payment from customers and less than 1 week cycle time for goods they need to deliver to their customers. Therefore, the Quarterly reports are only out of phase by a week plus the time between Quarter's end and release of earnings by these companies. Andrew