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To: John Finley who wrote (8250)	8/20/2000 4:27:40 PM
From: PAR	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 9582

I'll take $30 for my shares!

To: John Finley who wrote (8250)	8/20/2000 5:31:15 PM
From: DJBEINO	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9582

16Mb DRAM prices lifted by shortages Published: August 17, 2000 Source: The Taiwan Economic News he net profit margin on 16Mb dynamic random access memory (DRAM) recently jumped to 50% as spot prices for the chips crossed the US$5 mark due to a global shortage. According to industry watchers here, most of world's leading memory-chip producers shifted production earlier this year to 64Mb chips made with the advanced 0.18-micron technology, leaving the 16Mb chips in short supply. Nan Ya Technology Corp. of Taiwan recently announced that it will make 16Mb DRAM using 0.2-micron technology in fourth quarter this year. The company expects to earn revenue of NT$1.2 billion (US$39 million) per month by that time, and a total profit of NT$1.5 billion (US$48 million) during the three-month period. Nan Ya President Y.S. Chuan said that his company is turning out about 5,000 eight-inch silicon wafers of 16Mb DRAM chips, or four million chips, a month at its first plant using 0.28-micron technology. The company plans to make the chips with 0.2-micron technology in order to raise profit margins. Nan Ya claims that it can get 1,800 gross chip dies from an eight-inch wafer using 0.2-micron technology. By adopting the more advanced technology, the first plant can crank out 7.6 million chips a month. Based on the current spot price, the company expects revenue from 16Mb DRAM to climb to NT$1.2 billion a month in the first quarter, and total profit to reach NT$1.5 billion in the period. According to the American IC Exchange (AICE), spot prices for 16Mb DRAM now average US$5.37 a chip, compared with US$8.26 for 64Mb chips. 16Mb DRAM is now a sideline product in the world memory-chip market. In Taiwan, only Nan Ya and Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp. are still producing the product. Both companies presently offer a contract price of US$4.5 for the 16Mb chips, though Nan Ya is likely to bring its pricing in line with the industry average after its 0.2-micron technology comes on line. Vanguard Vice President H.R. Hsieh said that his company will reserve 18,000 of its monthly output of 34,000 eight-inch wafers for the production of logic ICs and 14,000 wafers for 16Mb DRAM. The company currently uses 0.21-micron technology to produce its 16Mb DRAM chips. Dataquest Inc. and the International Data Corp. of the United States, and the Industrial Technology Information Service of Taiwan, all predict that the demand for DRAM will expand sharply with the explosive popularity of sub-US$1,000 personal computers, Internet-access devices, new-generation chipsets, and microprocessors. Personal computers in the sub-US$1,000 category have been the major DRAM users, absorbing 2.45 billion 64Mb DRAM chips in 1999, or around 75% of world output. The figure is forecast to jump to four billion chips this year and 17.6 billion chips in 2003.