The news of WorldCom's financial shenanigans only hit the wires a few days ago, so the full range of fallout from its accounting malfeasances is unclear. Concerns over a ripple effect undulating down to the chipmakers have been raised, largely in terms of possible negative impacts on telecom equipment companies such as Juniper Networks, Cisco, and the like, prime customers of many semiconductor companies. The communications IC and optical networking sectors were already forecast to have flat growth this year, and WorldCom's downfall could have deleterious consequences for that sector as well as for the recovery of the entire semiconductor space.

But the immediate or longer-term financial impact of WorldCom's fall from grace, albeit large, is not what troubles me most. For several months, fresh revelations of corporate misbehavior and corruption have been reported on an almost daily basis. Public and investor confidence in big business has been pummeled. The question in many observers' minds is, how many more scandals will be exposed? For those of us keeping tabs on the semiconductor manufacturers and their suppliers, will yet-to-be-exposed corporate accounting frauds turn up in our backyard? One can only hope that the industry's relatively clean financial reputation will stand up and the sector will weather the storm.

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Whether the lingering stench of scandal fills the air or a clean breeze is blowing, and whether an up or down cycle has the industry by the short and curlies, the approach of Semicon West always means an increase in product launches and corporate chest-beating from equipment and materials suppliers. This year's been no different, and recent news items foreshadow likely talking points at the show.

Applied Materials has made its usual slew of showtime product-line announcements, including one bound to generate intense discussion: the launch of Oasis Clean, the first tool in the capital-equipment behemoth's fledgling wet cleaning unit. MICRO got the 411 on the new system in time for us to include it in this issue's Industry News section (see related story on page 22), but the reactions of other players in the cleaning space are still coming in. Hot on Applied's heels and right after we went to press with our news section, FSI announced its initial foray into immersion cleaning with its new automated platform, Magellan.

The two launches should intensify the discussion over one of the cleaning sector's great debates: batch versus single-wafer. Don't expect a resolution of that argument anytime soon. The various cleans and strips make up the largest number of process steps in a chipmaking line (about a quarter of the steps in the transistor-creation process alone), and no single method—wet or dry, immersion or spray or scrubber, batch or single wafer—will be the ultimate solution for the entire range of FEOL and BEOL cleaning requirements. On the market-share side, the big question is how Applied's entry will affect the somewhat-fragmented cleaning segment of the tool business. Will Applied be just another face in the crowd along with current market leader Dainippon Screen and a dozen or so other players, or will the tool giant eventually gain a dominant share as they have in CMP over the past five years? Equipment market watchers will keep their eyes peeled on how the cleaning tool sector shakes out now that the big dog's in the yard.

Tom Cheyney
Editor
tom.cheyney@cancom.com