Formerly About Applied Materials Message Board

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials

AMAT 323.97

-0.4%

10:40 AM EST

Public Reply Prvt Reply Mark as Last Read File

Previous 10 Next 10 Previous Next

To: Tito L. Nisperos Jr. who wrote (48946)	7/9/2001 10:33:06 PM
From: Math Junkie	Read Replies (2) of 70976

One reason that technology buys continue even in bad times on the part of chipmakers is competition. Here is an example: I was responsible for dealing with engineering problems that would interfere with the building of wafer inspection systems. Many times electronic components that we used would go obsolete, so we could no longer buy them. One such component was an analog-to-digital converter chip. Our circuit board had been in production for a few years, and the newer chips had gotten to be about one-tenth the size, at about 1/20th the price of the old chips. Under those conditions, the market demand for the older chips had fallen off so much that the chipmaker could no longer make money manufacturing them. There was simply not enough volume of demand to make it economically feasible to do it. So the chipmaker was forced to discontinue the old chip, and we were forced to redesign our circuit board to use the new chip. As new technologies become available, competitive forces sooner or later mandate their adoption.

Report TOU Violation

Share This Post

Public Reply Prvt Reply Mark as Last Read File

Previous 10 Next 10 Previous Next