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To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (14897)	7/17/1998 4:19:00 PM
From: Andrew Vance	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 17305

AV--Let me spell the answer to this comment. S-E-M-A-T-E-C-H !!! This gov't funded consortium was set up to do just that. While Uncle Sam was backing Sematech, many EIP (Equipment Improvement Programs) were undertaken and a great deal of taxpayer money was used to fund such efforts between Sematech and the equipment providers. If not for the $$$$ thrown in the direction of SVGI relative to their Micrascan, track, and maybe even furnaces systems, SVGI would have been long gone by now, IMO. SEMATECH is now self sufficient and is not throwing around as much money, I believe. The real issue is the lack of acceptance of the final products from the member companies into full scale orders and production. there was a time when the SEMATECH assignees from the member companies comprised of a number of "outcasts" from the home companies. Sort of a home for wayward engineers. This turned around but it still seems that the views of the SEMATECH assignees are not necessarily the rule of thumb for the policy of the core company. SEMATECH fast became a very nice extended R&D lab for all the members with no real committment to implementing all the neat things developed there. Make no mistake about it, the equipment companies have been the beneficiaries of some corporate welfare out of Sematech. the cost would have been much higher wiyhout some of these programs. I would guess some of the funds dried up as the Gov't pulled ou tits funding and let Sematech fly free. They became way too conservative and seemed to have backed off on some of the implied promises of future business. I am in favor of the partnership arrangement you are talking about only if the contributing company gets royalties off the future sales. TXN developed many a tool that was comercialized by equipment companies. AMAT would be nowhere today if it weren't for Bell Labs. Andrew