Don't Mistake Business Plans for Planning (It May Be Dangerous to Your Financial Health)

Most academic research concerning business plans suggests that business plans  improve the performance of new firms, and virtually all textbooks related to small business advise ent repreneurs to prepare plans before sta rting a business. A survey of the chief executive officers (CEO) in the INC. 500 (America's 500 fastest growing, privatel y held  small  firms )  suggests  otherwise-fewer  than  twenty percent of the respondents indicated that  they had prepared complete business plans before start-up. Furthermore, firms which prepared business plans were less profitable when entering the rapid  growth phase  than those which did not. This article explores benefits and limitations of  business plan preparation

Pre-Export Planning and Start-up Export Performance for Small Electronics Manufacturers

An increasing number of small businesses are seeking customers in foreign countries. At this time, however, our knowledge of small business successful export practices is limited. To increase our export understanding, it has been suggested that research should examine in more depth the relationship between export planning and performance.   Based on a sample of eighteen small firms in the electronics industry, weak support was found for the hypothesis that the level of formal export planning is positively related to export performance. Areas for future research and limitations of the study are also discussed

System integration and performance of the EUV engineering test stand

The Engineering Test Stand (ETS) is a developmental lithography tool designed to demonstrate full-field EUV imaging and provide data for commercial-tool development. In the first phase of integration, currently in progress, the ETS is configured using a developmental projection system, while fabrication of an improved projection system proceeds in parallel. The optics in the second projection system have been fabricated to tighter specifications for improved resolution and reduced flare. The projection system is a 4-mirror, 4x-reduction, ring-field design having a numeral aperture of 0.1, which supports 70 nm resolution at a k{sub 1} of 0.52. The illuminator produces 13.4 nm radiation from a laser-produced plasma, directs the radiation onto an arc-shaped field of view, and provides an effective fill factor at the pupil plane of 0.7. The ETS is designed for full-field images in step-and-scan mode using vacuum-compatible, magnetically levitated, scanning stages. This paper describes system performance observed during the first phase of integration, including static resist images of 100 nm isolated and dense features