OK, you have made me go back and do some homework. Please comment or correct anything in the notes below that I have got wrong.
I started with the SI thread beginning in January, 1999 (the post number in the two thousands is noted below). BTW, it is surprsingly difficult to read older posts on SI -- I ended up having to use the "classic" site.
Also of note -- I found nothing on the LU, AMCC or VTSS sites, or in accumulated wire reports or financials, about what you call "Lucent pulling the plug" [on Vitesse]. If you have an actual source for this, I'd appreciate the link.
GaAs = digital gallium arsenide ICs (superior to silicon for high speed communications circuits -- 2 to 4 times faster than silicon, although more expensive to manufacture)
SiGe = silicon germanium, developed by IBM, still in research stage, promises speeds comparable to GaAs with less cost as is a less "exotic" material, according to IBM:
"SiGe-based semiconductors are expected to be a powerful complement to high-speed products based on more exotic materials such as gallium arsenide."
(source: research.ibm.com
Vitesse background:
50% of sales to telecomm equip cos including Alcatel, Ericcson & Lucent
5 year analyst consensus earnings growth rate 38%
(Source: moneycentral.msn.com
Analyst ratings: 12 Strong Buy and 7 moderate buy,
up from 9 Strong Buy and 6 moderate buy 3 months ago
(Source: moneycentral.msn.com
First SI post in Jan, 1999: #2116
Is SiGe a threat to VTSS's GaAs product line?
Is VTSS's relationship with Lucent in serious jeapordy?
1. The 97 documents on the Lucent site that respond to a search for "GaAs", some of them
quite current, show no signs on Lucent's part of dropping this technology. The 9 documents that respond to a query for "SiGe" on the Lucent site show that Lucent will be introducing some SiGe designs in the year 2000.
2. AMCC has licensed the SiGe technology from IBM (old news, dating back to 1998). So far, SiGe is seen as cheaper and complementary rather than a replacement for GaAs. The potential risk to VTSS is that the SiGe technology may climb the "good enough" tree and start being competitive for the upper end applications that VTSS excels at. See, for example:
Message 7691690 (Post 2249)
This bears monitoring, but does not seem to me to be grounds for selling VTSS. |
