How did everyone like that unbelievable move coming out of the quiet period? Here is an article on recent semi-show which
AUGT attended:
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Mon 17 July 2000 Home Technology News Industry News Story
Semiconductor Equipment Show Is Upbeat
Duncan Martell
PALO ALTO, Calif. (Reuters) - This year's annual trade show of semiconductor
equipment makers is turning out to be even more upbeat than last year's confab
as the computer chip industry rides the Internet wave.
Still a bit bruised and battered last year, the semiconductor industry has roared
out if its worst-ever slump, which started to end in late 1998. And the makers of
multimillion-dollar equipment used to make computer chips stand to be among
the main beneficiaries of torrid growth in the Internet, still-strong personal
computer sales, and the rapid spread of wireless devices like cell phones.
"The chip has been the engine of the information age," said Applied Materials Inc
Chairman Jim Morgan at a press conference on Monday in San Francisco, where
the big trade show is being held. Market leader Applied Materials unveiled 21
new systems for making chips.
The chip industry has long been known for its boom-and-bust cycles. Economic
downturns, overcapacity, and falling demand for PCs and other electronic
components can wreak havoc. But some have suggested that this semiconductor
cycle is different and could last longer than past ones.
INTERNET IN FULL SWING
The Internet is in full swing now, and to cite just one example of the explosion in
wireless technologies, Merrill Lynch & Co expects about 440 million cellular
telephones to be sold this year, many with wireless Internet access. All this drives
demand for chips and for the equipment that makes them.
SEMI, the industry group for the chip-equipment and materials industry, also on
Monday updated its forecast for growth in its industry for the next three years.
This year's market, which includes wafer processing, assembly and packaging,
testing systems and other capital equipment, should rise to $34.8 billion, from
$25.5 billion in 1999. For 2000, SEMI forecasts that the industry will generate
sales of $43.0 billion and $48.4 billion in 2002. Those figures are based on 60
companies surveyed by SEMI.
"We're still not yet halfway through the current cycle, and the game may well go
into extra innings," said longtime semiconductor equipment analyst Sue Billat of
Robertson Stephens.
Analysts said to expect some companies at Semicon West - which for the first
two days is held in San Francisco, then in San Jose, California - to introduce a
torrent of machines designed to use 300-mm, or dinner-plate-size, silicon wafers.
The industry, at long last, is starting to spend the billions of dollars necessary to
upgrade chip plants from the current 200-mm, or salad-plate-size, wafers. With
the move to the bigger wafers, from which computer chips are made, chipmakers
can get as many as 2-1/2 times more chips from a single wafer. That cuts costs
enormously and boosts efficiency.
Novellus Systems Inc, a longtime Applied rival, will also have a number of new
products to announce at Semicon, analysts said.
'BEGINNING OF THE TRANSITION'
Overall, growth is strong. The Semiconductor Industry Association said that
worldwide sales of chips soared 36 percent to a record $15.2 billion in April from
$11.2 billion a year ago. The trade group's President, George Scalise, cited
strong PC sales and demand for cell phones and wireless communications
infrastructure.
Demand has been particularly strong for dynamic random-access memory chips,
or DRAMs, and prices for the chips, traditionally volatile, have been rising in
recent months. Also selling briskly, in addition to microprocessors to power PCs
and computer servers, are digital signal processors and flash memory chips, both
of which are used in the latest cell phones.
Billat said that in addition to the 300-mm chipmaking products that will be on
show, industry watchers should also expect companies to tout new materials as
making chips more powerful, cheaper, smaller and more efficient. But most of
the emphasis will be on 300-mm machines.
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Tom B. |
