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

To: Rusty Johnson who wrote (29437)	4/8/1999 8:39:00 PM
From: Jeffrey D	Respond to of 70976

Bloomberg story on AMAT's Cu products. Jeff Applied Materials Unveils New Products for Chip Wires Santa Clara, California, April 8 (Bloomberg) -- Applied Materials Inc., the No. 1 maker of semiconductor equipment, unveiled two new products to help companies build high-speed chips with copper wiring. Applied introduced an electroplating machine, which the company said in October would be available this quarter. It also unveiled a polishing tool, which smoothes the rough surfaces on copper wiring, improving the performance of a semiconductor. Applied said it has received orders for both. Copper wiring is the latest advance in an industry that makes the machines needed to speed chip performance. Applied has invested heavily in the process and is battling rival Novellus Systems Inc., which unveiled its electroplating tool yesterday, to gain an early lead in the growing market for copper equipment. ''To maintain its leading market share, Applied has to come out with new leading-edge products,'' said Theodore O'Neill, an analyst at Needham & Co., who rates Applied stock a ''buy.'' Applied rose 3/8 to 65 1/8. Novellus rose 1 13/16 to 63 1/4. Interconnected Electroplating fills in channels on the surface of a semiconductor with copper to create tiny interconnected wires. Because copper is a better conductor than aluminum, it lets semiconductor companies make chips with smaller wires, boosting their performance. Applied said it has orders for the electroplating tool from customers in the U.S., Europe and Japan and that it expects to begin shipments later this year. It said nine customers already took delivery of copper-polishing tools. ''If they can put the whole process together, they're going to get a lot of their customers up and running a lot faster,'' said Merrill Lynch & Co. analyst Mark Fitzgerald, who rates both Applied and Novellus ''buy.'' Market-research firm Dataquest Inc. predicts that sales of copper-deposition tools, which include electroplating, will rise 37 percent a year through 2003. Novellus said yesterday that it's ready to take orders for its electroplating tool. Lam Research Corp. and SpeedFam-Ipec Inc. also make equipment for copper wiring, though neither competes in the market for metal-deposition tools. Apr/08/1999 18:34 >>

To: Rusty Johnson who wrote (29437)	4/8/1999 9:17:00 PM
From: Katherine Derbyshire	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 70976

In my opinion, only a technically naive rookie with no clue about either the semiconductor industry or optical lithography would describe EUV as "extending optical lithography's reign." See news.semiconductoronline.com for a more detailed discussion of why EUV is radically different. Among other technical inaccuracies, the TRW laser does not directly generate EUV light. It heats up a metal source, which then emits EUV photons. The difference matters because "laser-produced plasma" is far less efficient than using a laser directly. Harrumph! (Sorry to be so grumpy. I just wish "reporter" weren't such a broad term sometimes.) Katherine