High-NA EUV has received a lot of attention ever since Intel put the spotlight on its receiving the first 0.55 NA EUV tool from ASML [1], expected in 2025. EUV itself has numerous issues which have been enumerated by myself and others, most notoriously the stochastic defects issue. There are also a host of issues related to the propagation… Read More
-KLA dominates process control like ASML dominates litho
-Industry in “panic mode” over capacity drives process control
-Like others, KLA tool supplies are in demand & tight supply
-Balance of 2021 “filled out” – now booking for 2022
Solid numbers and very solid guide for a better second … Read More
A decade ago, many of us heard commentaries on how entrepreneurs were turned down by venture capitalists for not including a cloud strategy in their business plan, no matter what the core business was. Humorous punchlines such as, “It’s cloudy without any clouds” and “Add some cloud to your strategy and your future will be bright… Read More
– Strong demand across logic/memory & leading/trailing edge
– Customers want units fast-no time to test
– The main question is can ASML ramp to meet demand?
Revenue & Earnings low due to systems being rushed to customers
ASML reported Euro 4B in sales and Euro 1B in net income which while within guidance… Read More
Due to the higher energy of EUV (13.3-13.7 nm wavelength) compared to ArF (193 nm wavelength) light, images produced by EUV are more susceptible to photon shot noise.
Figure 1. (Left) 40 nm dense (half-pitch) line image projected onto wafer at 35 mJ/cm2; (Right) 20 nm dense (half-pitch) line image projected onto wafer at 70 mJ/cm2.… Read More
The stochastic behavior of images formed in EUV lithography has already been highlighted by a number of authors [1-3]. How serious it appears depends on the pixel size with which the photons are bunched. Generally, though, for features of around 20 nm or less, even 1 nm can have at least a +/- 15% gradient across it, which is still a
– KLA put up an excellent quarter and Guide
– Rising above the increasing tide of orders
– Confirms $75B capex in 2021 with upside
– Foundry & Logic continue to be the sweet spot for KLA
Business is very very good and getting better
-Revenues came in at $1.8B with EPS of $3.85, all above the range
-Guidance… Read More
– Business is about as good as it gets- $75B WFE in 2021?
– China remains strong at 32% despite SMIC lack of license
– NAND remains 48% of revs versus 31% foundry
– DRAM steady @ 14% – Service was record $1.3B
Strong results in a strong market
Lam reported revenues of $3.85B and EPS of $7.49 for the March… Read More
Taiwan and Korea represented 43% and 44% respectively with China at 15% and Japan and the US in the far distance.
ASML a tidal wave of orders
On the call management talked about logic potentially being up 30% in 2021 and memory being up potentially 50%. While we thing foundry/logic will clearly be on fir we think memory will lag a bit.… Read More
At the SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference in February 2021, Regina Freed of Applied Materials gave a paper: “Module-Level Material Engineering for Continued DRAM Scaling”. Applied Materials provided me with the presentation and was kind enough to set up an interview for me with Regina Freed.
I also spoke to Regina Freed last… Read More
