From Electronic Buyers News, Friday, December 12, 1997 at 22:46
(Published on Monday, December 15, 1997 at 00:00)
by Andrew MacLellan
...
Hyundai Semiconductor America, San Jose, learned last week that
Standard & Poor's Corp., New York, has placed the company's
triple-B-minus long-term currency rating on credit watch. S&P cited a
slower-than-expected production ramp of 64-Mbit DRAM chips and the
difficult market faced by San Jose-based hard drive manufacturer Maxtor
Corp. as contributing to the credit warning.
South Korea's economic turmoil has, in fact, curbed the appetite of at
least one chip-industry contender. The Dongbu Group, which had planned
a 2 trillion-won venture with IBM Corp. to build a facility to
manufacture 64-Mbit and 256-Mbit DRAM, has now postponed the deal,
according to a report from the Reuters news service.
In other areas, the collapse of South Korean distributor Woo Young
Tech Co. Ltd. has sent its own shock waves across the Pacific. Lattice
Semiconductor Corp., Hillsboro, Ore., said the failure of its South
Korean distributor has left it unable to fill certain customer orders
and has placed $3.5 million worth of inventory at risk. The company
said it is working with its South Korean OEMs to arrange direct
shipments.
Meanwhile, this month's South Korean national elections are
compounding the country's economic woes by introducing an element of
political uncertainty, local observers said.
"The current situation in Korea is very bad," said a spokesman for the
LG Group. "The won-dollar exchange rate has to improve before we can
begin to hope for a strong recovery, and there is uncertainty over what
new government policies may bring." |
