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Technology Stocks : Dupont Photomasks (DPMI) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Katherine Derbyshire who wrote (726)	11/16/1998 2:51:00 AM
From: Duane L. Olson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 955

K.D. gee, I hope we aren't drawing any lines at .25...yet. You've addressed the complexity and the difficulty issues several times, notably in : news.semiconductoronline.com And, with the complexity goes the costs.....perhaps $21,000 for a "typical" photomask at .25u, while the estimated cost jumps to $47,000 for the comparable mask at .18u....as discussed extensively on this thread in the spring...eg: Message 3975481 As for the capability of actually producing masks at the narrower widths, my impression from discussions around March/April was that DPMI and PLAB were somewhat ahead of the game, at least in lab developments (it was a DPMI mask used in the UT experiments at .08u, as I recall).. Be all that as it may, I hope there are no "dividing lines" for the photomask folks...at .25u, or anywhere down to the (unknown) limits of DUV.. TSO

To: Katherine Derbyshire who wrote (726)	11/16/1998 9:41:00 AM
From: LittleMax	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 955

How much business is there at .25 right now? Thank you for your most recent post. Your revised statement on Asian demand is accurate and your revised comment on mask suppliers holding up relatively better than front-end equipment companies is also accurate. Fundamentally, we are down to two issues. The first issue is my claim that MASK is relatively undervalued next to DPMI and PLAB and absolutely undervalued in terms of standard valuation measures, e.g., P/E. It does not appear to me that any of the other comments on this thread or the related threads have put a dent in that claim. The second issue is your claim that 0.25 is the current standard or, at a minimum, that it is not far off. (I hope that phrasing is acceptable.) I agree that .25 is the current technical standard. I'm questioning whether it is the current business standard. I suspect that a lot of profitable business is being done at larger sizes and will continue to be done at larger sizes for some time. The transition to .25 in a business sense (not just a technology sense) is taking place and will continue to take place over the next year or so. In a normal industry cycle, MASK does fine (i.e., is still undervalued). The only way for MASK to be relatively adversely affected over the next few quarters is for .35 and above to disappear at the same speed the 486 disappeared when the Pentium showed up. I don't think that's happening. If you know where the sales volumes are published on this point, please share it with us. Is there anyone else on this thread who can comment on this transition question? LittleMax