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

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (43799)	3/15/2001 8:44:31 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Toshiba Expects Double-Digit Growth Amid Recession: President of Toshiba Semiconductor March 15, 2001 (TOKYO) -- The tone of the LSI market has suddenly started to deteriorate, but the nation's top LSI maker, Toshiba Corp., hopes to continue posting double-digit growth in 2001. Yasuo Morimoto As for memories, Toshiba plans to drastically increase production of high value-added Rambus DRAMs and focus on highly profitable items in its development of system LSIs. Yasuo Morimoto, president of the Semiconductor Company of Toshiba, was interviewed on how his company intends to keep up with the plan in the way of streamlining LSI production lines, gaining access to the Chinese market and implementing personnel training. Nikkei Microdevices: The tone of the LSI market has suddenly exacerbated lately. Morimoto: Our order backlogs began dropping after hitting the peak in July 2000, and sales also started to decline in December 2000. LSIs for PCs and consumer appliances are seeing very limited demand, and we haven't had any encouraging reports except that there is sizable demand for LSIs in the optical communications market. In the medium-term range through 2003, we expect to achieve production growth of an average of 13 percent. But business will be harsh on a short-term basis, especially up to the second quarter of 2001. Hopefully, things will begin to pick up in the third quarter and the market growth will be around 13 percent, but at present, we see no sign of a business recovery before the end of the second quarter. Q: Under such circumstances, what are the target figures set by Toshiba? Your company's projected production level has been lowered from 1,180 billion yen to 1,120 billion yen. A: No matter what the market conditions may be, we will aim at achieving growth of over 10 percent in fiscal 2001 compared with the year previous. Our plan is to make the first half of FY2001 match the first half of FY2000, and realize growth in the second half of this fiscal year compared with the same term last year. Q: Let me ask you about each business sector. First, how is your memory LSI business? A: We are in favorable balance as far as flash memories and SRAMs go, but as for DRAMs, we are in the red. We must do something about DRAMs. Our conclusion is that we should increase production of high value-added Rambus DRAMs (RDRAMs). The total world production of RDRAMs in 2001 is expected to be about 240 million to 250 million units. We at Toshiba turn out about 2.7 million to 3 million units per month at present, but by September, we will be producing about 7 million to 8 million of them per month in terms of 128Mb units. Q: How about flash memories? A: Flash memories for digital and still cameras should do pretty well. But the area of music recording which we expected would become the driving force for huge demand doesn't seem as strong as it ought to be. Under the circumstances, we will now hope for success in large-capacity chips for cell phones, and challenge the area with NAND flash memories. As for the NOR-type memories, we expect to encounter competition from an increasing number of suppliers, and business won't be easy for us. Q: What about the total LSI sales of DRAM, flash memories and SRAM memories combined? A: I would say toward the upper end of single-digit growth or if possible, a two-digit figures under the fiscal 2001 plan. Q: How about the system LSI business? A: Our sales growth in FY2001 will be better than those for memories. We'll aim at achieving growth of about 15 percent. Our scenario is to go steady in the first half of the year and make substantial growth in the second half. Q: I see that some makers are trying to go into the Si foundry business in China. A: The fact is that we have been called upon by a number of companies to enter into technical cooperation or become Si foundry partners. We are exploring the possibilities. Q: Do you have any plans to found upstream processes in China? A: China's huge market certainly is appealing to us. But we must think very carefully before deciding if it would be really adequate to advance into China and found upstream processes there. We must also think carefully about which LSIs to produce in China. If we can use Si foundries in China and assemble parts on China's own downstream lines, we can expand on our LSI sales in the Chinese market without building everything on our own. Related story: Toshiba to Shift from DRAMs to Flash Memories, Interim Report Says (Yosuke Mochizuki, Editor-in-Chief, Nikkei Microdevices)