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Technology Stocks : Rambus (RMBS) - Eagle or Penguin -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: richard surckla who wrote (24121)	7/3/1999 6:55:00 PM
From: richard surckla	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 93625

OT... Found the following on another thread: <The hand behind VIA, FIC, Cyrix and PC133 Perhaps it's Intel's real enemy. Small nimble Taiwanese companies like FIC and VIA are part of much larger conglomerates that are much less publicized. In the case of FIC and VIA, they are part of the tentacles of a super conglomerate called Formosa Plastics (Formosa = Portugese for Beautiful, the name given by Portugese to Taiwan when they first arrived there.) This conglomerate is better known as Nanya. Nanya is probably Asia's biggest plastic producer and probably the world, with meteoric growth due to a very aggressive leadership. You think of Dupont+GE, you get the idea. The stakes of Nanya is that it supplies the plastic for much of Taiwan's electronic industry, and for that matter, for the PCBs of your Taiwan made motherboard and graphics card. They have branched out into the PC industry itself, with stakes on many companies including FIC International and VIA. This explains the unusually close relationship between FIC and VIA. Obviously they have also expanded into memory production (Nanya Technologies?) and has staked a fortune on PC133. This puts them on odds against Intel who wants to make money of its Rambus investment. If AMD supported PC133 with 133MHz supported K6-2s and K6-3s, maybe I suspect the Cyrix deal would not pulled off. But AMD didn't. Without AMD's support and Intel attacking PC133, the stakes are high to push a third processor alternative that can use PC133. VIA is a crucial key on PC133 because they made the chipset for it. VIA can acquire maybe a dubious patent umbrella from National Semiconductor. But in the long run, acquiring CPU technology makes Taiwan more and more indepedent from American CPU producers like Intel and AMD. They got Rise, and I suspect IDT also, and now Cyrix. If they can't do the P6 license, they may attempt to renew pushing PC133 on a new Socket 7 platform, this time using a new Cyrix CPU that may end up competiting against AMD. Acquiring Cyrix is more than just a patent umbrella for the Asian conglomerates. They are looking aggressively far ahead to make Taiwan not just the capital for PC integration, but also a CPU producer. They are trying to make the island more and more independent from the American CPU producers like AMD and Intel, put more and more of their economic fate at their own hands. If you know how much Taiwan's economy depends on the PC industry, and thereby the whims of AMD and Intel, you should know how important to take that control into your own hands. There are more and more Taiwan related investments. I suspect that UMC (United Microelectronics Taiwan), part of another large conglomerate, made a major investment on S3 before S3 pulled the Diamond acquisition. Ever notice what keeps companies like Rise afloat, if obviously they're not making money? Who is financing them and their expensive R&D? Dealing a company with strong Asian connections is not like a US company who are always accountable for quarterly profits and losses. They may be small, but they got big, big backers and intends to play keeps in the long run. VIA going against Intel appear like a David vs. Goliath match, but in this case, it's a David given a blank check by a giant brother to buy the Stingers and the bazookas he needs. Cyrix going to VIA is going to be much bigger than Cyrix going to National Semiconductor. VIA is a fast moving company, and so was Cyrix, once a long time ago. This may bring back the old Cyrix spirit. We can finally see those new processors, and indeed, it's possible, they may have a profound effect on the balance of the processor wars. Rgds, Chris>