Numeritech semi floats: share price flies

A US firm which creates proprietary technology which it claims will assist yields for semiconductors at processes of .18µ (micron) and far below went public on Nasdaq at the end of last week. Numerical Technologies (ticker: NMTC), works on technology that will circumvent lithography problems that occur creating semiconductors at .18µ and below and licenses its technology -- in a similar way to Rambus -- to chip companies. The firm calls this the subwavelength gap. There's another connection between Numeritech and Rambus -- they both share the same chairman -- William Davidow, a major investor in the firm. The firm has partners including semi design form Cadence, mask and kit firms including DuPont, Photronics, Applied Materials and KLA-Tencor. Its chip customers so far include Motorola, Lucent, TSMC, UMC, and VLSI, who are testing a technology which gives gate lengths of .09µ on standard .25µ and .18µ process technology, Numeritech claims. The latest member to join the fold was Texas Instruments, about one month ago, which is using the firm's phase shifting technology for .13µ wireless chips and other DSP semicondcutors. Motorola is using the licensed technology to create devices with truly micronscopic gate sizes for its Power PC technology, sources said. When it went public on April 7th last, its share price rocketed from its estimated float price of $12 to $35.5625 on Nasdaq. ®