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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: akidron who wrote (22968)8/13/1998 5:43:00 AM
From: zalesky  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 70976
 
To all: Its time to apply additional investment dollars to
Applied Materials. If you want to buy a great company
near the bottom here it is!!! One sneeze of good news
and the Big Boys will send this issue into the upper 30s.
Good Luck while you back up the Semi for this well
undervalued equity!!!!



To: akidron who wrote (22968)8/13/1998 9:12:00 AM
From: Katherine Derbyshire  Read Replies (4) | Respond to of 70976
 
Regarding 300mm being skipped.... That topic came up a couple times at Semicon West. From what my sources were telling me, equipment companies and especially wafer companies have sunk HUGE amounts of money into 300mm. They do not have the will or, more importantly, the resources to write all of that off and skip to the next generation after that. If the chip makers want >300mm equipment, the feeling I get is that they will have to write some checks to fund development.

Also, the real reason that 300mm is being delayed is that die shrinks are happening faster and more successfully than expected, which means the economics of 200mm wafers are remaining viable longer than expected. 300mm wafers (and, by extension, larger wafers) simply do not make economic sense at current die sizes.

I had a very interesting discussion about these issues with the Chartered Semiconductor process people a while back. For those wanting more info, you might take a look at
news.semiconductoronline.com

Katherine

PS In light of recent debates about motives, some might question the link to my own commercial site. I simply don't feel like re-writing analyses that are already web accessible. If you're offended, don't follow the link.

PPS Yes, I'm a little testy. Sorry.



To: akidron who wrote (22968)8/18/1998 3:56:00 PM
From: Shoot  Respond to of 70976
 
300mm will not be skipped. It is too big a step technically to go from 200mm to 500mm wafers. Even 200 to 300mm is pretty difficult. At present it is not possible to manufacture a 500mm wafer.
Currently 300mm is being pushed back, but it will come when the up turn comes. As sure as day follows night.
At the moment I am buying at $32.
The good times will come again and chips will come on 300mm slices of Silicon.