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What’s an aeroplane without a pilot?
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The fact that the press statement said absolutely zilch about how
this was going to be achieved shouldn’t go unnoticed nor should the
fact that zilch was said about how it would obtain the process tools
and automation systems to mesh this altogether.
It is well
known that without the support of the equipment suppliers the pilot
line project will remain a pipe-dream. As yet, no equipment supplier
has endorsed the next wafer migration, after two years of campaigning
by ISMI and Intel.
The latest news doesn’t seem to indicate any
change in sentiment from either side, so surely time is seriously
running out for the 2012 milestone?
At last year's ISMI
Conference, one supplier I talked to about the ongoing developments
summed up the problem by saying to me that ‘though an aeroplane needs a
pilot to make it fly, it needs passengers (equipment suppliers) to pay
for the flight. Until that happens, it remains grounded.'