Do you suppose articles like this in recent days have caused people to sell SNDK:
yahoo.cnet.com
Fujitsu, AMD to boost flash
memory production
By Stephanie Miles
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
May 23, 2000, 8:50 a.m. PT
UPDATE -- Fujitsu and Advanced Micro Devices said today they
plan to construct a plant to manufacture flash memory chips
for increasingly popular devices such as cell phones and
Internet appliances.
Flash memory is used to store data in some of the most popular
consumer electronics products, including cell phones, digital
cameras, handheld computers and MP3 music players. Booming
demand for such devices has created shortages throughout the
industry, with expectations that the low supplies will result in
product delays, revised configurations and eventually higher prices.
Fujitsu and AMD said the new plant,
constructed through their joint venture
Fujitsu AMD Semiconductor Ltd.
(FASL), will be the third manufacturing
plant at their existing production
facility. Construction is scheduled to
start in August and is expected to be
completed by February 2001, the
companies said.
The total investment from the two
companies is around 140 billion yen
($1.3 billion).
AMD, known mainly for PC processors,
has recently found flash memory to be
one of its fastest growing businesses. The company yesterday sold
its communications products division, partly to focus on flash
memory, an AMD representative said.
The increased demand for consumer devices has reinvigorated the
flash memory business, which had been a barely profitable venture.
Soaring demand for the memory--along with increasing
revenues--has translated almost directly into profit because
manufacturing costs are relatively fixed, analysts say.
In 1999, 1.3 billion megabytes of flash memory left factories,
roughly twice the 690 million megabytes produced in 1998,
according to market research firm Dataquest. The FASL plant's
production capacity is expected to be around 13 million 16MB
chips per month, growing to 52 million 16MB chips per month in
2002.
Fujitsu cited statistics projecting that flash memory market is
growing at 20 percent per year. Other research pegs sales climbing
from $4.5 billion in 1999 to $10 billion this year, with manufacturers
Fujitsu, AMD and Intel expected to take the majority of the market.
News.com's Michael Kanellos contributed to this report. |
