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

To: Richaaard who wrote (7065)	11/25/1998 9:51:00 PM
From: Falstaff	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9695

There will be one Next Generation Lithography, if SIA and the Japanese have anything to say about it. Check out the philosophy statement at the sematech.org. The goal is to select a single next generation lithography and, as I think about it, it doesn't matter whether this is pushed by SIA or not: one technology will emerge as accepted and the others will find niches or cease to be of interest. The costs associated with converting to a new fab technology are enormous. This is a very big decision, and the SIA is acting like MITI in Japan in that it is setting industrial policy. However, I believe that this is just a needed steering function that will make the decision sounder and faster. Even without this steering function, a consensus will emerge naturally from industry and 98% of the industry will use the technology that is selected. The infrastructure required for semiconductor manufacturing is too broad and deep; technologies competing with the chosen path will not stand as much chance as Apple does against the WIntel juggernaut. If XRL is not the ultimate victor, then the work going on now will be only a research topic or even just a bypassed might-have-been. Look closely at the chart at the site referenced and note carefully that XRL is not perceived to be ready any sooner than any of its competitors except EUV. Note also that all of the competing technologies are expected to be able to work in domains smaller than XRL. All of them. Look carefully at the chart and notice the overlap of 193 nm DUV and XRL (and the typo that says 198 nm). Now, consider the human spirit and creativity and the profit motive, already demonstrated with the extension of 248 nm DUV, and perhaps you begin to understand why I think DUV lithography may be extended to overtake XRL at the large target domains (180-100 nm), while SCALPEL or IPL or some other technique is concentrated on for the longer term benefit and smaller domains than XRL can work in (100-20 nm ?). This is prognostication with out a doubt, but JMAR is betting on XRL being THE next generation lithography. They are also prognosticating.