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Technology Stocks : WDC/Sandisk Corporation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Binx Bolling who wrote (15476)	10/10/2000 10:51:44 PM
From: puborectalis	Respond to of 60323

Wafer Foundries Predict Full Capacity Production in November October 10, 2000 (TAIPEI) -- Taiwan's wafer foundry manufacturing industry is strongly rebutting charges that diminishing demand has left them with idle capacity. According to a local newspaper, wafer foundry manufacturers may have some slack in their production in November as the flow of orders slows down. However, local companies say that, although they will not be working as intensively as in recent months, when their plants were stretched beyond their normal capacity, their production lines will still be working at full normal capacity. Wafer fab giants Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. and United Microelectronics Corp. remain confident of reporting record sales highs throughout the fourth quarter. It is generally agreed that the industry can expect the fourth quarter to be slightly less frenetic than recent months. A well-placed source said that the orders for November received by wafer foundry manufacturers were between 10 percent and 30 percent lower than in the industry's exceptional period of intensive production earlier this year. A market watcher noted that there had been an unusual increase in demand in the slack season. Many distributors and system manufacturers have been storing up memory chips bought during this period, and the result may be a slight weakening of demand in the fourth quarter. If production does slack off in November, the effect will only show up in the figures for next year's first quarter shipments. Wafer fab sales figures for September should remain encouraging. Both TSMC and UMC have forecast sales records in September, predicting sales of around NT$16.5 billion and just over NT$10 billion, respectively. If there is a slackening of production in November, unused production lines are not expected to gather dust for long. The excess store of memory chips should be digested soon, and with healthy prospects for memory chip sales on rising demand for PCs around the Christmas season generally predicted, wafer foundries will soon find themselves not only working at full capacity, but also being unable to supply the total demand for their products. Observers therefore expect the industry to be fully recovered next year, and prices to reflect the traditional factors of supply and demand. (Commercial Times, Taiwan)