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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kash johal who wrote (85799)	1/7/2000 2:45:00 PM
From: Charles R	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572649

Kash, <As far as flash capacity is concerned. The market SUCKED till mid 99 and rational folks had cut back. It takes 2-3 years to arrange financing,put a new fab up, stick the equipment in and ramp up production. We are looking good for next 2 years at least. There are also technology and product barriers as well when it comes to flash.> How about the significant additional capacity folks like Intel, AMD and ATML are putting in nowadays. If I got my numbers right FASL is increasing capacity by 30% in Q2. This does not even include AMD's FAB25 (not sure if AMD will share this capacity with Fujitsu as part of their FASL venture). Intel is expanding by bring back mothballed fabs. Atmel is also adding capacity big time. Apparently Tiwanese are converting DRAM capacity into FLASH and logic (partly because of anti-dumping duties on DRAMS and partly because they are lot more opportunistic.) Also the major DRAM makers are making noises about converting some DRAM capacity into Flash. What I think I am seeing is supply coming online to support 50-70% growth in Flash market (some of the supply will be in the form of finer geometries). If that puts supply </= demand everyone is happy. Otherwise.... What is your take? How much growth in Flash supply do you see for the next year and how much do you expect the demand to grow? Chuck

To: kash johal who wrote (85799)	1/7/2000 3:37:00 PM
From: Greater Fool	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572649

>>All the forecasts are for robust demand in this space Unfortunately robust demand does not by itself equate to strong profits. Whether strong profits will ever arise from the sub-1k space is a matter of opinion. I frankly don't think they will. >>Fab 25 will be transformed into Flash over next year I imagine we'll learn more about that particular project on the 19th. >>It takes 2-3 years to arrange financing,put a new fab up, Correct, but as you pointed out, existing fabs can be converted. It's hard for me to imagine someone cranking out any other quarter micron product when the fab can be converted to flash at fantastic profit margins. >>There are also technology and product barriers as well when it comes to flash Very true, and AMD has terrific flash process and product technologies, but AMD is by no means the only provider. The barriers are considerably lower than with microprocessors, for example. The attractiveness of flash won't disappear overnight, but opportunities this lucrative never last.