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

To: Ian@SI who wrote (26197)	11/12/1998 10:56:00 PM
From: Katherine Derbyshire	Respond to of 70976

>>Semi earnings may be based upon $. Equipment companies need the units for capacity buys.<< But chipmakers need $$ to pay for the equipment. Tons of units at low or zero profit is how we got into this mess in the first place, remember? Besides, if anything, there is significantly more unit capacity out there now than there was in 1997, due to shrinks. Re: 300mm, the latest that I'm hearing is pilot lines in 2000-2001. KLAC's new AIT II tool is 300mm capable, except that the standard for the handler is still in flux. Metrology generally needs to be done first, since you can't qualify the other tools without it. Needless to say, no one's going to be building a production fab until the automation standards are established. Katherine