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To: shane forbes who wrote (15324)	9/30/1998 1:15:00 PM
From: E. Graphs	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25814

Shane, And, STM pays the price today: down 3+ (ouch!) but on low volume. --------------- Quantum dots: By DICK STANLEY AUSTIN, Texas -- Technical fixes to reduce the World Wide Wait are coming into use, but a dramatic reduction in their price could be around the corner because University of Texas engineers have connected the dots. Quantum dots, that is: man-made atoms 20,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. Quantum dots trap electrical charges, producing lasers for transmitting digital data. Dennis Deppe, an associate professor of electrical engineering, and Diana Huffaker, a research associate in electrical engineering, have for the first time figured out how to make quantum dots perform as a laser on lower-cost material than they do now. Moreover, they've done it at the telecommunications industry's preferred wavelength of 1.3 microns. The lower-cost material, gallium arsenide, is 10 times cheaper than the indium phosphide semiconductors now used to make data-carrying lasers for the fiber-optic technology that increasingly is used to reduce bottlenecks in the Internet's growing traffic. ''This is a major technical advance,'' said Jack Jewell, a former AT&T Bell labs researcher who is now chief technical officer of Picolight Inc., a Boulder, Colo. startup supplier to the telecommunications industry. Jewell said the UT achievement is only a laboratory demonstration whose reliability remains to be worked out, putting it at least two years away from commercialization. But he said the breakthrough should be a significant spur to continued industrial research and development with gallium arsenide semiconductors. Making lasers on gallium arsenide could make fiber-optic technology more readily available to homes and businesses. In addition to their uses in Internet data transmission, the cheap lasers could help improve digital video movie discs; the read/write CDs used by home and business computers; and even bar code scanners used for such things as tabulating purchases at checkout counters. Eventually, Deppe said, quantum dot lasers of gallium arsenide could be useful when computer chip makers move from wire to light for transmitting information from chip to chip. Deppe and Huffaker, researchers at UT's Microelectronics Research Center, are scheduled to announce their achievement today at the Semiconductor Science and Technology Conference in La Jolla, Calif. They discussed some details of the work last week in an unscheduled presentation at a telecommunications conference in Cannes, France. Available commercial lasers at the 1.3 micron wavelength are enabling new optical fiber telephone lines to transmit much more digital information over longer distances, while maintaining truer sound and sharper images in high-speed applications. They are an improvement on the older, slower copper telephone cables that have caused the Internet's World Wide Web to be dubbed the World Wide Wait. But the indium phosphide compound used to produce 1.3 micron wavelength lasers - in so-called quantum wells when stimulated with an electric current - is not only more expensive but less heat-tolerant than gallium arsenide. ''Because of the significant cost savings, the telecommunications industry has been pushing hard for a gallium arsenide laser that operates at this wavelength,'' Deppe said. Researchers have experimented with quantum dots before, but making them is tricky. The UT researchers use a process called molecular beam epitaxy which allows them to make single atomic layers of a material one at a time. They used the process to make their quantum dots from indium gallium arsenide in cavities on a gallium arsenide semiconductor, similar to the way water droplets form on a shower curtain. Huffaker said the atoms assemble themselves in clusters of about 10 million each in the cavities. When an electric current is injected into a cavity, the electrons combine with the quantum dots to generate light. The light bounces back and forth in the cavities, she said, exciting further emissions of light from the dots, which produces the laser. Despite the remaining reliability problems, the UT development is attracting industry financing for continuing the 18-month-old research that so far has been paid for with a $50,000 grant from the State of Texas Advanced Research program. ''We have a company that's very interested,'' Deppe said. ''But I'm not at liberty to give the name.'' ----- (The Cox web site is at coxnews.com )

To: shane forbes who wrote (15324)	9/30/1998 1:47:00 PM
From: getgo234	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 25814

Shane and others: As reported in 10-01-98 issue of the Korean Herald, Hyundai has developed a 0.21 micron process technology enabling production of high-performance merged memory logic (MML) chips. MML chips are built by merging a memory and a logic device. Compared with separate memory and logic chips MML chips offer advantages such as higher data rates, lower noise and higher power efficiency. Company plans to begin volume production in the first half of 99. MML technology is seen as a stepping stone toward SOC design. Company plans to develop .15 micron manufacturing process by 2000. Is this news significant to LSI investors ? Thanks for your comments.