>"The conventional wisdom has been that chip manufacturers would have to use
>12-inch wafers, instead of 8-inch ones, to be profitable in the 256-megabit DRAM
>business. The larger wafer allows chip producers to pack about 2.5 times more dice
>than the smaller one."
>Comments?
and culled from your link:
"But the cost of developing the technology and buying the equipment for 12-inch wafers is prohibitively high, especially for Korean chip manufacturers beset by rock-bottom memory prices and cash shortages."
shakush.
koreans are obviously knee deep in kim-chi. this looks like a band-aid cost savings measure to me. i can't speak for dram manufacturing specifically, but long term i think you'll agree that the need for semiconductors (and thus the equipment and automation required) is obvious. as i'm also sure you're aware, this industry is notoriously cyclical (and cutthroat -- price is everything), and pria has gotten pummeled by the fallout. however, imo, the industry clearly sees the efficiency of 300-mm fabs vs. 200-mm: higher chip yields (potentially 2.5x in the motorola-siemens pilot) with lower per-chip production costs. more moore's law.
i'm strictly a long-term investor and with most semis gotten beaten with an ugly stick, currently view the pria as a potential value play. the current price certainly doesn't reflect its (or the industry's) future growth potential, imo. now, i have no idea how long that wait will be (management has already stated at least two quarters), and who knows, we may not have fully hit bottom. accounts payable are up, inventory turns are down, price-to-sales and price-to-cash-flow are way above the industry average, not to mention that the chart looks pretty heinous. on the other hand, we're still debt free and overall, have way less asian exposure than our larger cousins like amat or klac. i think a patient investor could be getting this one at a bargain. |
