TD, you gotta love it. I thought the same thing, today would be a soft NASDAQ and AMAT might retrace at the opening. Thats why I think any kind of short or medium market timing attempts are doomed to failure over the long haul. To all- I predict AMAT at ~125 by somewhere near end of "99, but I don't pooh-pooh the possibility of it being sooner. We could have another capacity squeeze driven by everyone junping to add capacity, coupled with the inevitable, aint no doubt its gonna happen move to .25 and .18. the entire installed base can't do these processes, its obsolete. Not to mention 300mm, you can't upgrade any of the installed base, its an entirely new tool set. Also, the new tools must have SMIF or alternative mini-environments, barcode readers,or alternative, new in-situ diagnostics( not a necessity, but some will have), etc. ASP's will really jump- not $2M a system, more like 5-7M. Plus, for AMAT, whole new markets- CMP, RTP, Track equipment, metrology( Opal, Orbot). Could be $10B by 2000.
Heady stuff. |
