I will specifically address MASK and one of its customers. MXIM has had phenomenal growth over the past few years and will continue to grow at a very healthy rate. Why??? They are a world class leader in Analog technology and have gone from foundrying their wafers to manufacturing their own. They have acquired fabs and are expanding in many of them. They are introducing 100s of new designs per year at an average 20 plus masking layers per device. Between new designs, redesigns, and variations of existing designs, they will consume a great deal of reticles. As they transition to other types of steppers or technology, new reticles will be required. If I am not mistaken, MASK is a supplier of reticles to MXIM. As MXIM grows, so does MASK. This is the same with their other customers. MASK is like Budget Rent A Car compared with AVIS and Hertz. However, the market can handle all 3 comfortably.
MASK has made some good investments to engage more heavily in the more advanced reticles required by the marketplace. The potential margins here are good since this added set of capabilities will allow it to penetrate more customers. I work the ASIC industry as opposed to the Standard Parts therefore I would hazard a guess that you are looking at 2 specific markets. I would expect much less design activity out of the Microprocessor and DRAM guys as compared to the Application Specific IC providers. My guess is you are looking at an average of 1-2 new designs per week for a typical ASIC site and maybe a total of 6 new designs for a volume producer like DRAMs and MicroP. However, when you factor in design improvements and redundancy for the DRAMs/uP type companies, I would guess you are looking at a 5:1 ratio between the two.
A better assessment of MASK would be to find out who their major customers are. If MXIM is considered a major customer, MASK will prosper. If you have the time, see if you could generate a list of their top 5-10 customers and we can discuss the propsects.
Andrew |
