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Technology Stocks : Ultratech Stepper -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Demosthenes who wrote (2916)	12/13/1998 7:13:00 AM
From: Justa Werkenstiff	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3696

D: Re:"As to why no other Ubeams have been delivered, I think one reason has been stated quite clearly by UTEK in the past: beta testing must be complete on the premises of Plab and Plab must take full receipt of the machine with all satisfaction in its performance." Yes, beta testing must be complete but PLAB is not going to take on anymore machines I would think until it measures the Ultrabeam as a production worthy tool in actual volume production. PLAB is still beta testing and has been doing so for quite a bit and has not put the machine into a volume production as of last week. (PLAB has had the beta Ultrabeam for over one year now.) FWIW, PLAB is also beta testing another vector writing tool from Lieca (sp?). Re:" While you're wondering, consider the consequences if they had other Ubeams delivered and then Plab decided they didn't like theirs. Can you imagine the ensuing disaster? I stand with UTEK and say that when the first customer has fully accepted the product and says so publically (the joint press release) then they can ship 10 Ubeams per day and know they brought the machine to market right." Fair point with respect to PLAB (10 machines per day <g>), but why has DPMI not taken delivery of an Ultrabeam at this point? DPMI will want to do its own beta testing and I can't quite figure out why they have not taken delivery to my knowledge. And if DPMI takes as long as PLAB to do its beta testing, then we would be well into the next cycle before they are entering volume orders for Ultrabeam. I don't get it. Maybe someone else has more knowledge of what is going on.

To: Demosthenes who wrote (2916)	12/14/1998 1:59:00 AM
From: Jeffrey D	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3696

Demo, note the following from PLAB's earnings announcement on 11/01/98. Seems they are saying they completed beta testing on the ETEK product and completed an "evaluation" on the UTEK product. I don't know if it's just semantics or if your UTEK contact was not completely forthcoming with you. Jeff << Photronics' technology milestones during the year included the production of an advanced photomask combining aggressive optical proximity correction and phase shift enhancements for SEMATECH's DELPHI Project Team which was used to resolve 100 nm features using a 248 nm exposure source; becoming the first photomask member of IMEC's Industrial Affiliation Program on Optical Lithography; completion of the beta test for Etec Systems' ALTA 3500(tm) 0.25 micron laser lithography system in Photronics' newly constructed manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas; and evaluation of vector scan electron beam lithography systems from Leica and Ultratech Stepper.