Some mixed news of the net...
Business is still a boomer
New orders in October propelled the rate of growth in the electronics
industry to a new high for this year, according to EBN's Quest index for
October. For the 15th straight month, the Quest index checked in above 50,
the level beginning industry growth, Ismini Scouras writes in EBN. Quest hit
57.8 in October, up from 56.7 in September. A big part of the reason was
the PC, cellular phones, and networking gear, says TI economist Vladi
Catto.
Quest's new orders index soared to its highest reading in two-and-one-half
years, climbing to 60.8 in October, and up from September's 57.6. Chip
inventories averaged 2.2 weeks of production, a record low, says TI's
Catto. In July, inventories were 2.4 weeks, and hit 4 weeks in 1987.
SIA cuts '98 chip forecast
The outlook for next year isn't looking as good as it did last May to the SIA.
Its latest forecast this past week trims several percentages points off its
growth forecast. In May it predicted '98 growth of 20.1% for a global
market of $166 billion, but now it's only looking for a 16.8% increase to
$162 billion, Rob Lineback writes in Semiconductor Business News.
The new SIA forecast is the latest of several '98 chip outlooks that have
been revised downward. The biggest argument is over DRAMs. Some
downgraded forecasts because of continuing DRAM price erosion. In-Stat
is looking for only a 13.5% increase next year because of lower DRAM
ASPs. The SIA and others predict an end to the steep slide in DRAM
prices. Dataquest, like the SIA, is predicting 20% growth in DRAM
revenues for '98.
Asian PC markets go south
It's not just the financial markets that are in big trouble in Asia. So is the PC
market, Mark Carroll reports in EE Times. "The situation now in southeast
Asia is very bad," says Derek Brearley, PC manager at Twinhead. PC sales
in some Asian countries have fallen by nearly half, sources say. "Sales in
Southeast Asia are sluggish," admits an Intel official. For Cyrix, sales were
described as "pretty dismal."
Acer Computer says the PC slowdown is not likely to go away quickly. But
a major shrinkage in Southeast Asian sales would not be "world ending" for
global PC sales, says UBS Securities' Matt Cleary. "A 10% shrinkage
would cut global growth from 16% this year to about 12%. Significant, but
not catastrophic."
Just what the Dr. ordered
Yep. Another DRAM supplier from Taiwan! Macronix, Taiwan's largest
vendor of EPROM and flash memory, is licensing Matsushita's 16-Mbit and
64-Mbit DRAM technology. It has started fabbing 16-Mbit DRAM on a
foundry basis for the Japanese firm and will start turning out 64-Mbit
DRAM next year, Mark LaPedus writes in EBN.
But what the Taiwan chip maker really wants to do is combine its logic
products with embedded memory within the next two years. "We need to
run DRAMs in order to fulfill our long-term goal of developing embedded
memories and systems-on-a-chip products," says CEO Miin Wu. Last year
Matsushita was the 15th biggest IC maker with $2.3 billion in sales and
Macronix had sales of $373 million.
dave |
