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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials
AMAT 297.52-6.6%Feb 4 3:59 PM EST
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To: akidron who wrote (17308)3/8/1998 3:10:00 AM
From: Clarksterh  Read Replies (2) of 70976
 
aki - chip business is, at least in the short to medium term dependent on the computer biz.

Of course. Given that they are currently the biggest individual segment of the chip industry, then any slowdown in that area is going to hurt.

because pc's are the only devices that constantly (every 9 months
upgrade their requirents of computing power)

Not true. Mobile phones and networking gear also upgrade continuously and they use state-of-the-art technology. And some pieces of that area are growing substantially faster than PC's at the moment. (ERICY grew handset sales at 80% last year.)

set-top boses are designed to stay on top of your set for 5 to 7 years.

Again, agreed. But the initial build out is likely to be quick and massive. Kind of like the PCS infrastucture growth of last year. Phenominal growth for 1 or 2 years, and then growth at a rate of only 10% or so. Still, it may well have a substantial impact on semi sales later this year and next. (Just to give some numbers, over the last 2 years I've seen 4 or 5 multi-Billion (with a 'B') contracts signed by the cable companies to start rolling out digital. Most of them were scheduled to start this year and last 2 or 3 years.) And, as far as upgrades are concerned, the paradigm may change now that TCI is talking about putting an operating system in the STB. They may move to an upgrade cycle more like PC's. We'll have to wait and see.

Clark
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