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

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (41313)	1/5/2001 11:42:12 AM
From: orkrious	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Interesting comments from Herb Greenberg at Thestreet.com: subscribers only thestreet.com Fred Ramberg of Fechtor Detwiler out with some VERY interseting thoughts this ay-em. In the following TSMC is Taiwan Semiconductor: "A colleague of mine who is a sales executive for a private manufacturing company supplying a consumable component to both end-user fabs and OEM equipment manufacturers returned from Taiwan the week prior to Christmas. Today was the first chance I had to speak with him. He told me a tale of being at TSMC and personally viewing the dark, empty building that is FAB 6. He was later shown the warehouse where all of the process equipment purchased and delivered for that fab was being stored. Over drinks with some TSMC managers later he mused about the fact that an empty fab was sitting right next to a new building being erected to house another fab - FAB 14. Probably with the effect of 100 proof truth serum he was told that; 'Oh, we must continue to build fabs. It helps to keep our stock price up - they believe that we have orders requiring all this capacity expansion. Our employees rely heavily upon stock as compensation and if the price falls we cannot afford to pay them.' Neither my friend nor I could think of a snappy comeback to that revelation." Ramberg adds: "It’s a mess out there. It’s so bad that many, right in the middle of it, just can’t or won’t believe it. Many are not nimble enough to keep themselves from rocketing over the cliff without slowing down. Many are not prepared for a rapid change to a new wafer size and the technologies that are required, when the turn-around comes."