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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jeffrey D who wrote (36033)	7/25/2000 10:31:32 AM
From: Cary Salsberg	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Front End, Back End In addition to being ratio challenged, discussion of BTB has not touched on the obvious significance of the divergence between front and back end. Back end has fallen to 1.09. Since this is test, assembly, and packaging of chips, it says that unit output is flattening in the face of robust demand and some shortages. This drives new fabs and front end equipment, and as new production ramps, back end BTB could expand again. A long period of back end BTB in the 1 to 1.1 range indicates that production is coming online gradually, while a return to the 1.5 range could be a warning that too much capacity has come online too quickly.