Did you listen to the ESIO conference call? The president talked about what they are seeing for yield repair systems for the DRAM market. He said there was a lot of demand for equipment from Korea, but no money to pay it, as we all know. In fact, he said if he was willing to be their bank, he'd have a lot of orders.
The surprise was that he saw Japanese memory companies moving to upgrade systems to produce more advanced product. This statement was a little cryptic and that's why I ask what you may have heard, but as much as it looks like Japan is surely going to cut overall spending, they may still do some strategic buying to strengthen their DRAM business, hence ESI's recent order from Toshiba.
It is a very interesting question of whether a semi equipment company, like Genus, could find a middle road to sell equipment to Korea and still cover their expenses. If I was a marginal vendor and I was hoping to make market share in roads, I would offer to sell machines to companies like Hyundai using a flexible payment schedule. If they could get partial payments upfront to cover expenses, and make full payments later, this seems like a better situation than laying off employees. They would get their money eventually, wouldn't they? Afterall, do we really expect to see Hyundai go bankrupt?
For that matter, do we expect to see Hyundai, LG Semicon, Samsung or others go bankrupt? Sure they have a lot of restructuring issues to deal with, but are we talking bankruptcy? These companies are so big, they will weather these times and return to fight again.
Anyway, I'm mostly interested in your views on Electro Scientific (ESIO), (who by the way says they are very strict on assuring payment). I thought they made a favorable impression.
Regards,
Mark |
