June 23, 2006, 1:20 pm
TSMC (TSM) Reportedly Pushing Out Some Equipment Orders
Posted by Eric Savitz
As I’ve noted in previous posts, Citigroup’s Timothy Arcuri has maintained his cautionary stance on the semi equipment stocks while other analysts recently have taken a more positive stance on the group. This morning, he banged out an update to bolster his case, asserting that chip foundry Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM) has begun to push out tool deliveries, “with a large portion of 300mm tool shipments” scheduled for the July to October period now pushed out about a quarter. “This is a change from checks conducted late last week indicating no industry pushouts had occurred,” he writes. So far, he says, the pushouts appear limited to TSMC. The companies with the greatest exposure to any slowing at TSMC, he says, include Applied Materials (AMAT), Lam Research (LRCX), Advanced Energy Industries (AEIS), Mattson (MTSN) and Novellus (NVLS).
Arcuri concludes that, while memory-related spending remains strong, the pushouts “weaken the argument for a tool order re-acceleration in the second half of this year. |
