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

To: Tony Viola who wrote (36829)	8/16/2000 4:32:46 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Malaysia’s 1st Silicon Receives Loan Approval from Japanese Bank US$59.5M loan to be used for capital expendeture. 1st Silicon of Malaysia has announced the conclusion of a financing agreement in respect of a loan US$59.5M during a signing ceremony with Japan Bank of International Corporation (JBIC). The funds will be used for the purchase and installation of wafer fabrication manufacturing equipment for 1st Silicon’s new 200mm fab in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia. An official with JBIC, stated "We are particularly excited about this loan to 1st Silicon because it is the first pure play foundry established in Malaysia, which is currently one of the leading countries in the world for back-end semiconductor manufacturing. Financial investments and commitments from the Malaysian Federal and State Governments for companies such as 1st Silicon ensure them a position under the nations umbrella or preferred, higher-valued category of industries, which are a major part of the government’s five year business infrastructure investment plan." The loan was arranged and funded by JBIC with participation by the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi (BTM), Fuji Bank (Fuji), and Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) in Japan. The impetus of Japanese funding is expected to have a positive effect on developing foundry business opportunities from Japanese companies. 1st Silicon CEO, Mr. Claudio G. Loddo, remarked, "Receiving these banking clearances is equivalent to receiving economic approval from the governments of Japan, US and Europe. The JBIC approval supports the efficiency of this government-backed venture. With 1st Silicon’s first production runs, Malaysia will then have every aspect of the semiconductor business covered, including wafer fabrication, enabling it to better compete in the global semiconductor market. This would also mean that the project has progressed from facility investment to funding focus on operational and production volume ramping." For more information try 1stsilicon.com semiconductorfabtech.com

To: Tony Viola who wrote (36829)	8/16/2000 4:48:38 PM
From: Cary Salsberg	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Tony, You are comparing a chip assembly plant (back end) with a microprocessor fab (front end). OT I wonder if INTC pays the $1/day wages that the shoe manufacturers were paying in China.

To: Tony Viola who wrote (36829)	8/17/2000 9:06:31 AM
From: Dr. Mitchell R. White	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Tony, Brian, threaders, 226 million chips of flash RAM doesn't sound outrageous to me, if I allow some assumptions like a) a flash RAM chip is about the same size as a 64M DRAM, and b) yields are comparable. (The last is a stretch that can cause flash output to be lower by a lot, I know.) With what I know about die count on a 200mm wafer, yield and wafer starts, I would expect a DRAM fab to produce about 17-20 million chips per month these days. That's right in line with the Intel number (remember my assumptions!). Interesting point: I would expect the DRAM folks to make these numbers with about 1,000 employees. So on a per-employee basis, the productivity at Shanghai is about 1/3 what I expect out of, say, Micron, Hyundai, or Samsung.... Mitch