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

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (40293)	12/1/2000 6:25:27 PM
From: Demosthenes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

J, <<Is it possible to have a cyclic downturn in back-end, but not in front-end? Has that ever happened in any other downturn? Maybe someone from the industry could elucidate.>> I'd like that, too. For those who don't know, Sue Billat has been saying for a year that this cycle would be longer because of litho constraints; that it's a good thing and that it will keep the cylce from heating up too quickly and then falling off the edge of the earth like past cycles. AZ, CEO of UTEK has been saying litho would be the bottleneck in the industry since at least a year and a half ago, maybe 2 years. UTEK's BTB, as of the end of Oct. is greater than 1.6. And, as you posted, ASML is smoking through next year with steppers. To me, this adds up to the "digestion phase" that has been mentioned by Infrastructure and others. This view argues for a pause in the cycle and then for it to resume for at least another 18 months. Infrastructure is on record last month after the stocks got hit that there "is plenty of time" after the digestion period for another upleg. That litho is a constraint seems true, but rest is fuzzy because of the disconnect in the Naz correction and equip stock prices. Thoughts? D