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To: Andrew Vance who wrote (16545)	6/3/1999 10:13:00 AM
From: LemonHead	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17305

As mentioned in the morning report. Finally, as the MU-TXN deal clearly indicates, swapping stock and providing cash is another form of creative financing to accomplish a goal without having to take a “mortgage” out at the local capital investment bank. Could you briefly state what that deal is? TIA Keith

To: Andrew Vance who wrote (16545)	6/5/1999 6:12:00 PM
From: FJB	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17305

Hello Andrew, I saw this article and thought of you. I would think very expensive mask sets create an incentive for purchases of high-NA scanners that can resolve 0.18 or 0.15 features without the use of PSMs(but with OPC), unless you are a DRAM manufacturer or Intel. Does that sound reasonable or not? The full-blown shift this year to lithography below 0.25-micron is confronting chipmakers with soaring mask costs. The situation could become troubling for IC vendors that lack the volumes to amortize the nonrecurring engineering (NRE) charges. "Today, a set will have between 15 and 30 layers. That could cost you anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 and up. I know of mask sets that have sold for over a million," said Paul Warkentin, senior vice president for R&D at Etec Systems, a manufacturer of maskmaking equipment. electronicnews.com Thanks for your thoughts, Bob