Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: unclewest who wrote (15293)	1/16/2000 1:07:00 PM
From: RocketMan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Weren't you also going to check on whether Agilent got their SiC wafer material from cree for their blue/greed LEDs, or had some other source? If you did and I missed it, can you repeat it? And if you weren't going to check, would you? BTW, my slightly OTM cree call came ITM last week, and my common has appreciated nicely. I may be missing something, but given the DD that you and others have shared with us, I just don't see a lot of downside for this company over the next few months. Whether they will become a gorilla, or whether and when a tornado will form is still TBD, but sometimes it's best to nibble before all the answers are in.

To: unclewest who wrote (15293)	1/16/2000 2:00:00 PM
From: StockHawk	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 54805

CREE >>he referred to the brightness gap as a "persistent rumor."<< unclewest, I copied the information referred to from a filing with the SEC made by CREE. The filing was a Registration Statement. It was dated 1/13/00 and it was filed on 1/14/00. The information appears on page 38 under the heading Competition. Again, this is the line: "LumiLeds Lighting, a joint venture between Agilent Technologies and Philips Lighting, which currently market blue and green LED products that are brighter than our high brightness blue and green LED devices." If the company is saying one thing in its filings with the Federal Government and another thing in public speeches than that would worry me. Here is the full text from which that line was taken, where they talk about their lower cost and smaller size in an apparent effort to make up for their lower brightness. Also are other excerpts from that 80 page document that address the brightness issue: [page 17] "We derive the largest portion of our revenue from the sale of blue and green LED products. We offer LEDs at two brightness levels: high brightness blue and green products and standard brightness blue products. " [page 33] "We are focusing current development efforts on further improving the brightness of our high brightness LEDs. We believe that increased brightness will further enhance our ability to compete against LEDs fabricated from sapphire substrates, which are presently brighter than our high brightness products." [page 38] "Our primary competition for the blue and green LED products comes from Nichia Chemical Industries, Ltd., Toyoda Gosei Co. Ltd. and LumiLeds Lighting, a joint venture between Agilent Technologies and Philips Lighting, which currently market blue and green LED products that are brighter than our high brightness blue and green LED devices. In addition, Uniroyal Technologies, Inc. has announced its intention to begin production of blue and green LEDs in January 2000. Existing competitors historically have been successful in the market for outdoor display applications because of the brightness demands of outdoor displays, as well as the decreased price sensitivity of the outdoor display market. We believe our brighter blue and green LEDs have enabled us to compete successfully in this market because our LEDs can be used in the same applications at a lower cost than competing products. At the same time, we continue development to improve the brightness of our LEDs to enhance our ability to compete in this market. We believe that our approach to manufacturing blue and green LEDs from SiC substrates offers a more cost-effective design and process than our competitors, who use a sapphire substrate. Our smaller chip design, which is compatible with industry trends toward package miniaturization, enables the diode to use less material and permits more devices to be fabricated on each wafer processed, lowering the cost per unit. In addition, our industry standard vertical chip structure allows manufacturers to package the LED on the same production line as other green, amber and red LEDs, eliminating the need for special equipment necessary for chips made from sapphire substrates. Furthermore, our SiC-based devices can withstand a higher level of ESD than existing sapphire-based products and therefore are more suitable for applications that require high ESD emission ratings, such as automotive applications. We believe that other companies, including certain of our customers, may seek to enter the blue and green LED market in the future. For example, Osram OS and Shin-Etsu have licensed some of our LED technology, which may facilitate their entry into our LED markets. We believe that Osram OS is currently producing LEDs using technology licensed from us. The market for SiC wafers also is becoming competitive, as other companies in recent years have begun to offer SiC wafer products or announced plans to do so." StockHawk