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ASML Ships New Tool For Smaller
Chips
Dutch semiconductor equipment maker ASML Holding NV said it was shipping
the
first of a new kind of lithography machine which can produce thinner
electronic circuits and smaller chips.
The machine can make circuits as thin as 65 nanometers compared to 80
nanometers with today's tools. This month it will be installed at Europe's
Interuniversities MicroElectronic Center (IMEC), a research and development
consortium backed by the world's largest chip makers.
A nanometer is one billionth of a meter and circuits will be almost as thin
as
one-thousandth the width of a human hair. The transistors on the chip, which
switch on and off and enable calculations, are bigger than the circuits.
ASML, which is facing a tough year in the chip equipment market as the
semiconductor industry's long-awaited recovery appears to have stalled, said
other customers who declined to be named had also placed orders for delivery
in 2003.
"We will ship more than two," an ASML spokeswoman said. The company has so
far
signaled it would ship two machines in 2003.
Competing with Japan's Nikon, ASML is one of the world's two largest chip
lithography equipment makers. The machines, which sell for some $10 million
apiece, are essential tools to map out circuits and transistors on silicon
wafers.
The new machine, known as the Micrascan VII and using so-called 157
nanometer
technology, will cost more than $10 million.
ASML shares were four percent firmer at 6.39 euros by 0948 GMT,
outperforming
a Dow Jones European tech index up 2.7 percent.
"It is good to see the technology being shipped on time, and with so many
potential customer backers," said Merrill Lynch analyst Andrew Griffin in
London.
CUTTING-EDGE
Not yet an ASML customer is U.S.-based Agere, one of IMEC's backers
together
with U.S.-based AMD, HP, IBM, Intel, Motorola and Texas Instruments, Europe's
Infineon and Philips, and Taiwan's TSMC, Griffin said.
The cutting-edge technology, which allows chip makers to put the same
number
of transistors on a smaller surface, had proved powerful and reliable in
initial tests, IMEC said.
"We were surprised to hear from IMEC that (the new machine) may not be as
difficult to implement as we had first thought," Griffin said.
The 157-nanometer technology is important as it may be the only available
technology to make chips with circuits thinner than 65 nanometers in two to
three years' time, he added, reiterating his "buy" advice on ASML. Griffin
said the announcement underpinned ASML's strong technology position.
ASML, which is 5.7 percent owned by Philips Electronics, posted a 2002 loss
of
208 million euros and has so far declined to give results guidance for
2003.
It needs to sell 90 machines per six months to make profit, and aims to cut
this to 80 units in the second half through job cuts. It expects to ship
around 60 units this first half.
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