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To: David Aegis who wrote (1742)	7/17/1998 12:03:00 AM
From: FJB	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2946

RE:With the 711 employee lay off announced today, I don't guess that SVG expects big orders from either UMC or Intel any time soon. I'm not sure it implies that. Track and thermco are capacity related divisions for the most part and nobody is adding capacity(that's my impression at least, do you agree?). Litho upgrades seem more common even in this ugly environment. Interesting article on RTP. Not sure about the implications for Thermco. Some interesting points: "We are developing applications to replace traditional furnace steps. You'll hear many agree that gate dielectrics are heading to RTP, and that's a big furnace application," Truman said. Leading furnace suppliers aren't rolling over and playing dead. "For 10 years now, we've heard that the next-generation single-wafer tools will take over and that the current generation of furnaces will be the last. But the economics of batch furnaces remain extremely favorable," said Boudewijn Sluijk, marketing manager for furnace systems at ASM International BV in Bilthoven, The Netherlands. Furnace vendors such as Japan's Tokyo Electron and Kokusai Electric, Holland's ASM International, and Silicon Valley Group's Thermco Systems Division are adding new features and improving the accuracy of batch systems, which can now process as many as 200 wafers in two to three hours. And they now are also offering smaller mini-batch furnaces with fast-ramp heating and cooling capabilities. Wafer furnaces still offer the lowest costs for such basic process steps as local oxidation to produce gate dielectrics and ion implant annealing. "The furnace people aren't standing still. They are reacting to the changes in the marketplace," maintained analyst Risto Puhakka, product manager for chip-making markets at VLSI Research in San Jose. "One of the major advantages offered by furnace suppliers continues to be low cost." Batch process steps in diffusion furnaces cost between $1 and $3 per wafer, estimated ASM International's Sluijk. Batch furnaces also have a space advantage, he said. "Vertical furnaces have about the same footprint as single-wafer machines. If you try to replace furnaces with [RTP tools], you would need at least two or three times the space for more systems to match the throughput," he noted. Diffusion furnace systems have evolved steadily since the early 1980s. In 6-inch fabs, horizontal furnaces with four tubes stacked on top of one another were the workhorse in high-temperature steps. In today's 8-inch fabs, new vertical furnace designs have taken over because loading them can be easily automated, Sluijk explained. Recently, furnace makers have introduced features to reduce cycle time and improve throughput. Batch furnaces get faster "Fast-ramp atmospheric tubes cut an hour out of furnace processing time, which had been roughly three hours," Sluijk said. Improvements have increased the length of "flat zones" -- the sweet spots in furnace tubes. "Traditionally, we had two-foot flat zones, but increasingly you are seeing furnace flat zones of three feet," he said. "This means a tube can hold one-and-a-half times more wafers." While diffusion furnaces continue to improve, RTP applications are spreading quickly as wafer processing continues to push deeper into submicron territory. "There are certain areas where RTP makes more sense because there is greater control over the process," said analyst Puhakka of VLSI Research. "When device geometries shrink, everything shrinks in all dimensions, resulting in much thinner films," he noted. "I think the next big battle between single-wafer RTP and furnaces will be in gate oxides. pubs.cmpnet.com