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Technology Stocks : Lucent Technologies (LU) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sai P. yandamuri who wrote (3857)	8/31/1998 6:07:00 PM
From: Danny Hayden	Respond to of 21876

Posted: 5:30 p.m., EDT, 8/31/98 Lucent unveils real-time particle blaster By R. Colin Johnson MURRAY HILL, N.J. - A Bell Labs scientist here at Lucent Technologies has unveiled a "particle blaster" that detects and analyzes contaminants in real-time during semiconductor fabrication. "Today we have to stop a fab line to perform non-destructive light-scattering tests to determine if any particles have settled on wafers, potentially causing short-circuits. But the particle blaster can detect and analyze particles in real-time without stopping the line," said William Reents, a member of Bell Labs' Process and Chemical Engineering Research Department, and the inventor of particle blaster. Conventional light-scattering techniques fail to analyze a particle's composition, other than its approximate size, said Reents, whereas the particle blaster determines the size of a particle as well as its precise atomic composition. Capable of detecting particles as small as one-thousandth of a micron, the particle blaster can determine the total weight of a particle and the relative percentages of the atomic elements of which it is composed. "We think that the particle blaster will help us to extend the limits of semiconductor processing technologies, as well as advance the sensitivity limits of our characterization tools," said Reents. Transistors are approaching the sub-0.10-micron range, which virtually obsoletes conventional light-scattering particle-detection techniques. The particle blaster can assist the process of detection by working continuously in real-time. In addition, if any particles of the "wrong" type are detected, alarms can alert fab personnel, rather than waiting for a postmortem analysis. "It brings particles under the focus of a high-powered pulsed laser, which then blasts the particle apart," said Reents. Breaking a particle into an ionized plasma of about 1011 atoms lets mass-spectrometer techniques be applied to determine its relative composition. Bell Labs is testing the particle blaster on its own fab lines. It hopes eventually to apply the particle blaster to further applications, such as analyzing trace particles in otherwise pure manufacturing chemicals or analyzing submicron pollutants. Home Headlines Careers Columns IP Watch All material on this site Copyright c 1998 CMP Media Inc. All rights reserved.

To: Sai P. yandamuri who wrote (3857)	8/31/1998 7:00:00 PM
From: Anonymous	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 21876

I too will sit here and just wait until LUCENT settles down and starts moving sideways once again...hopefully while the market indices start moving back up after a while of moving sideways. I'm looking for a little bit of foundation under the curve. I think that is still weeks away...sometime after most of the 3rd quarter earnings are reported. Historically, October has not been a very good month for stocks...and that also goes for the month of August as it bids us farewell. TO ALL OTHERS: Thanks for your thoughts on the psychology of the market. I think the last couple of days have proven that this market is moved more on the condition of the mind than on good sound financial results from companies. Seeing the Internet stocks tumble sort of confirms my belief that investing in a company's stock should be based on good fundamentals and a company's bottom line. How the Internet stocks could fly so high on just plain fad values is beyond me. Lots of people who didn't react fast enough are now looking at considerable paper losses and maybe in a lot of instances some real $$$$$ losses. I've looked on Internet stocks as sort of highway billboard advertising phenomenon...nothing really there to base anything on...such as Yahoo who is basing the value of their stock on how many hits are made on its Web site each day. I still don't buy that. ANONYMOUS