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To: AJ Berger who wrote (5596)	7/28/1999 3:56:00 PM
From: DJBEINO	Respond to of 9582

Flash-memory chips in short supply, says Atmel exec By Ismini Scouras Electronic Buyers' News (07/28/99, 02:50:20 PM EDT) A rise in demand from cellular phone and set-top box customers has cleared Atmel Corp.'s shelves of flash chips, according to B. Jeffrey Katz, vice president of marketing. "We're booked out in flash through the year," Katz said, speaking today at the BancBoston Robertson Stephens Semiconductor Conference in San Francisco. And a tighter supply and demand balance is pushing prices upward, he added. The price of a 16-Mbit flash part, for example, has risen from between $3 and $4 at the beginning of the year to nearly $5.50. "It has been increasingly up, but not sudden," Katz said. "It started at the end of the first quarter and continued through the second quarter." "All of our products have been showing better pricing than six months ago," he added. Despite the company's shortage of flash chips, San Jose-based Atmel said that it won't need to build a fab until 2002. In fact, the company's 1999 capital spending budget-pegged at $180 million-will be down from last year. In 2000, Atmel's capital expenditures will total approximately $200 million, Katz said. Whether the company will spend on additional acquisitions depends on which companies are in play, Katz said. "Many of the companies have already been acquired." In January, Atmel acquired the Smart Information Transfer (SIT) business of Motorola Inc.'s Semiconductor Products Sector, a move that enabled it to enter the smart-card IC business. A year ago, Atmel bought Data Communications Technologies (DCT), of Research Triangle Park, N.C. ebnews.com