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Technology Stocks : S3 (A LONGER TERM PERSPECTIVE) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JerryP who wrote (11930)	9/4/1998 3:37:00 PM
From: Stu	Respond to of 14577

From what I know about copper chips (and that is very little) it is not as simple as changing the wires from one metal to another, just like moving from .25 micron to .18 micron is not as easy as shrinking the design of the chip. In addition, having the technology and mass producing the chips are entirely different beasts. Producing copper chips means replacing millions of dollars of equipment in a fab. Then after you have replaced the equipment, it takes a long time to fine tune everything so that you get an acceptable yield. Because shifting to the new technology is fairly difficult, I do not expect very many fabs to be making copper chips anytime soon. Believe me, the entire semi equipment industry is praying for the transition to these new technologies, but with the current market conditions, it is not going to happen.