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Technology Stocks : ASML Holding NV -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Carl Mays who wrote (526)	2/19/1999 11:56:00 AM
From: Ritz	Respond to of 42383

Intersting article, lifted from Bloomberg.... ASM Lithography CEO Sees 'No Chance' for Intel Order This Year ASM Lithography CEO Sees 'No Chance' for Intel Order This Year New York, Feb. 17 (Bloomberg) -- ASM Lithography Holding NV has ''no chance'' of getting an order from Intel Corp. this year and becoming the world's largest maker of tools for printing patterns on semiconductors, Chief Executive Willem Maris said. Intel invited ASML three months ago to join the bidding on technology for extreme ultraviolet, or EUV, photolithography that may become a future standard for chipmaking. That led to speculation that Intel was preparing to buy ASML machines for the first time, and helped push the Netherlands-based company's shares up as much as 69 percent. Maris said he doesn't expect to get any business from the world's biggest chipmaker until at least next year. Intel probably will continue buying its photolithography equipment from Nikon Corp., though it's taking a harder look at ASML products, he said. ''They're evaluating our machines,'' Maris said in an interview while attending the SEMInvest '99 conference in New York. ''It takes some time before Intel will be convinced that they can do better with our machines.'' Intel and other chipmakers use photolithography equipment to print images of circuit patterns on silicon wafers, much like an enlarger transfers photographs onto paper. Other machines then etch the circuits from thin metal layers deposited on top of the silicon. Photolithography tools, made by ASML, Nikon, Canon Inc. and Silicon Valley Group Inc., are the most expensive in the chipmaking process. ASML is now the world's No. 2 maker of such patterning equipment behind Nikon. San Jose, California-based Intel has one ASML pattern scanner it acquired with the semiconductor unit of Digital Equipment Corp. in May. If the evaluations that it's doing on that equipment yield positive results, Intel may buy some equipment from ASML in the future, Maris said. The rest of Digital was acquired by Compaq Computer Corp. Other Efforts The work that ASML and Intel are doing together on EUV tools for transferring more intricate chip patterns onto silicon wafers has nothing to do with orders, Maris said. Those efforts aren't expected to lead to new products until at least 2005. Maris said ASML in general is getting more orders for its photolithography gear. Still, he expects first-half sales this year to be unchanged from the second half of 1999. ''There are some extra technology buys at the moment,'' said Maris, who is retiring as of Dec. 31. ''But we still have to get a lot of smaller orders. They'll come a bit later.'' ASML earned 62 million euros (US$69.7 million) last year on sales of 779.2 million euros. It reports sales and profit only for the first half and full year. Maris said ASML may not earn as much in 1999 because it plans to boost spending on research and development to have new products ready next year, when it expects orders and sales to surge. The company spent 318.7 million Dutch guilders (US$162.6 million) on research and development last year, up 55 percent from 1997. Maris said R&D spending won't rise as much in 1999. -Ritz