>>Other companies such as Hitachi, Matsushita, NEC, IBM, etc do many other things, and if they decide they really don't need the hassles of the memory market, they may go away.<<
carl, i read an interesting article where a japanese exec said that getting out of dram was very difficult b/c they learn so much about how to produce other semis. exiting the dram biz cold is not likely, imho. if walking straight away from billions in investments wasn't bad enough, they essentially have to exit all semi production. these countries, imho, have slated electronics as a long term strategic advantage not to be walked away from for good.
you raise an excellent point about marginal costs. decisions are made on a marginal cost basis. plants normally will begin running (those that are leading edge but not operational and those that are part time) when marginal cost = asps. of course, they may wait a little, but i wouldn't count on much.
what does this mean? that mu could be put in a position where they lose money for an extended period of time (the difference between net and marginal).
i see the possibiliies but understand the probabilities. |
