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

To: Pete Young who wrote (39076)	11/2/2000 11:36:48 AM
From: Gottfried	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Pete, >Sanders also blasted the "jerks" and "idiots" who he says have confused slowing growth rates with the peaking of revenues.< Good for Jerry! This confusion is widespread. About a week ago the San Jose, CA paper ran a correction because they had confused growth rate with overall shipments. Don't these people learn the difference in journalism school? Gottfried

To: Pete Young who wrote (39076)	11/2/2000 1:39:10 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 70976

Sharp investing $64 million to upgrade UMC's Nippon Foundry in Japan Semiconductor Business News (11/02/00, 10:29:47 AM EDT) TOKYO--Sharp Corp. today announced plans to invest 7 billion yen ($65 million) in Nippon Foundry Inc., a Japanese subsidiary of Taiwan's United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC). Sharp said it was making the investment in the silicon foundry operation as part of a long-term agreement aimed at meeting its "fast-rising" demand for flash memories and other advanced chip products. The initial capacity agreement is for 6,000 eight-inch wafers per month, and the volume is expected to grow to 10,000 wafers per month by 2002, according to Sharp. Production of wafers will take place at NFI's Tateyama, Chiba facility, and it is expected to begin in the second half of 2001. Sharp said the 7 billion yen investment is in addition to its own spending plans on its own manufacturing facilities. Sharp has also entered into a foundry alliance with Malaysian startup 1st Silicon (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd. in Kuching. During the summer, the two company announced an expansion of Sharp's agreement for processed wafers from 1st Silicon's new 8-inch fab to $300 million over the next few years (see June 29 story). It was not immediately clear how the new foundry agreement with UMC will impact 1st Silicon. The Nippon Foundry subsidiary has been converting itself from DRAM products to logic production for foundry customers since UMC purchased majority ownership in 1998 (see Sept. 29, 1998, story). With Sharp's new investment, the facility will be upgraded from the current planned capacity of 34,000 eight-inch wafers per month to 40,000 wafers per month, said company officials. The total required investment for NFI's expansion is 26.0 billion yen ($238 million). Under the new foundry agreement, Sharp will gain access to 0.18-micron and below process technologies from UMC, which is based in Hsinchu, Taiwan.