PAi-
<<Asian DRAM fabs are obsolete and cannot be magically restarted.>>
Asian fabs are not obsolete as they have been installing dUV steppers like gangbusters, and upgrading their fabs through the used equipment market. Now you will say, "Used equipment??? You have to be kidding!!" But... during 1996 and 1997 there was an aggressive campaign by the leasing companies to place equipment with fairly short lease times selling the feature of fast rotation of leading edge equipment. This made the availability of vintage 1995-1996 equipment plentiful during 1998. And contrary to popular belief, the average equipment life is more like 10-11 years at first installation (why else would a "standard" - not accelerated - lease package be 5 years?) This equipment can easily be 0.25 or 0.20 micron capable. Oxide CMP, vertical furnaces, high density poly etch systems come to mind. Don't kid yourself into believing the Koreans are not ready.
Also, the Taiwanese have lots of great capacity at their disposal, with Winbond running Toshiba chips, Powerchip running for Mitsubishi, etc., etc.
No fabs have been shut down for an extended period. A fab can be shut down a week a month with no problem, or run on two shifts. Koreans have been running at 70% utilization for most of the last 6 months.
PA, you really do need to tone down your oversimplification of the situation. Please.
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