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

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (43914)	3/16/2001 9:50:40 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 70976

LSI Logic's Corrigan Says Semi Industry To Recover In 2002 By Tom Murphy, Electronic News Mar 15, 2001 --- PHOENIX, Ariz. -- In the depths of one of the most abrupt market downturns to hit the semiconductor industry in the last 10 years, Wilfred Corrigan, president and chief executive officer of LSI Logic Corp., seems relaxed, pleasant and unconcerned about the massive sell-offs occurring on Wall Street. Corrigan is about to preside over Milpitas, Calif.-based LSI Logic’s (nyse:LSI) annual Connections conference, where the company will explain its corporate strategy and how it will attack the market with a three-pronged approach. After rebuilding itself as company focused on communications, LSI left the monolithic PC semiconductor industry to pave the way for the ASIC-to-standard products approach. Corrigan explained that LSI is positioning itself to offer silicon to the access, connectivity and storage markets. “Once a signal starts, we’d like it to go through as many pieces of LSI silicon as it possibly can,” Corrigan said. “Until it gets to be stored someplace-and then it get stored on equipment that we are hopefully the interface for. “We are really focused on architectures that start to do handshaking between different LSI Logic products across different cycles,” Corrigan said. “We see a very complimentary strategy between communications in general and storage.” Storage is a relatively new game for LSI. The company’s contentious acquisition of Symbios three years ago was mostly intended to net its components manufacturing. However, Corrigan said the storage products company that LSI discovered when it reeled in its catch has proven to be a bonus beyond original expectations. Growth for storage area network (SAN) systems is poised for an average 40 percent yearly growth rate, when and if the economy recovers. “The current slowdown, I’m not particularly concerned about,” Corrigan said. “It had to happen sometime and we were originally projecting it to happen in 2002. The economy decided it was going to happen 12 months sooner. But the advantage of that is we have a great 2002 to look forward to.” Corrigan said he believes the general slowing of the economy is the main culprit this time, as well as the increase in interest rates enacted by the Federal Reserve in 2000. However, this cycle is unlike other downturns the semiconductor industry experienced in the 1990s. Earlier downturns were generally caused by overcapacity issues, Corrigan said. But this year’s downturn is a return to a market phenomenon not seen since the 1970s or mid-1980s. “I think the industry is still pretty healthy,” Corrigan said. “If the economy stayed healthy, then I think you would have seen growth continue. I felt comfortable with 22 percent growth projections forecast for this year. But now, it certainly looks like it is going to be minus 10 (percent) for this year.” The difference in this cycle is that the era of vertically integrated companies is over, Corrigan said. Fifteen years ago, vertically integrated companies responded to slowdowns in quite a bit less dramatic manner than did companies outsourcing their manufacturing, Corrigan said. “That company simply says, ‘Stop,’” Corrigan said. “A company that is vertically integrated takes a much more measured response. They have all these people and they can’t just turn around tomorrow and shut it down. But the fact that this industry is much more out-sourced means that the decisions have been much more rapid and much more brutal. Everybody today has much better information, which means that everybody got the same information at the same time.” The abrupt stop also means that the industry can get through these periods much faster, Corrigan said.

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (43914)	3/16/2001 11:10:31 PM
From: semi_infinite	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

I cannot see any tech sector which is having anywhere close to what could be called decent quarters when compared to only 12-16 months ago. Take a look at the compound semiconductor equipment companies. Fundamentals seems to be holding up although valuations are down. Aixtron stock defies semiconductor gloom By Marijn van der Pas DUESSELDORF, March 9 (Reuters) - Shares in Aixtron AG shrugged off global semiconductor gloom, rising more than seven percent on Friday after full year results from the company beat analysts' expectations. By 1310 GMT, shares in the German semiconductor equipment maker were 7.8 percent higher at 86.30 euros while the DJ Stoxx technology index lost 3.26 percent and the Neuer Markt Nemax 50 index was 2.18 percent lower. ``The positive outlook on the results gave the shares wings,'' said Antje Liermann, a trader at private bank M.M. Warburg. Aixtron's share performance contrasted sharply with other semiconductor stocks which slumped on Friday, in the wake of a third consecutive sales warning from the world's biggest maker of computer chips, Intel Corp (NasdaqNM:INTC - news). Aixtron, which manufactures machines to produce semiconductors that are used in LEDs (light-emitting diode), the telecommunication industry and solar cells, said it was not concerned at the possibility of weakening economic growth leading to orders being cancelled. ``Most of our products are custom-made. This is why it is very difficult for our customers to pull orders,'' Chief Executive Officer Kim Schindelhauer told a news conference. Aixtron stock is trading 52 percent below its August 2000 all-time high of 179.00 euros but the stock has gained almost 40 percent since hitting a 12-month-low of 62.00 on January 5. The stock was also supported by the upgrade by German research house SES Research to ``outperformer'' from ``marketperformer''. SES said the company is trading at a fair price and has an excellent market position. UPBEAT OUTLOOK Late on Thursday, Aixtron posted a 78 percent rise in 2000 net profit to 18.5 million euros while sales rose 87 percent to 157.9 million, beating analysts' expectations. Full year earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) were up 92 percent to 32.9 million euros, roughly in line with analyst expectations. Five analysts polled by Reuters expected the Neuer Markt-listed company to report 2000 net profit of 16.6 million euros on sales of 151.1 million, while EBIT was seen at 32.08 million euros. Aixtron plans to increase sales to 235 million euros this year when it sees a net profit of 29.5 million. The company plans to pay a 2001 dividend of 0.20 per share, after concluding a planned one-for-one share split. Over 2000, the company said it will pay its shareholders a dividend of 0.20 euros per share, a rise of 122 percent from the previous year. The forecasts for this year, released late on Thursday, are higher than the estimates made earlier by the five analysts polled by Reuters. The analysts said they expected 2001 to bring sales of 215.1 million euros and a net profit of 27.44 million. Schindelhauer said that based on preliminary figures, Aixtron had build its market leadership in 2000. ``We have increased our market share from 54 to 56 percent,'' he said, adding the market share of its largest rival, U.S. based Emcore grew from 27 to 28 percent.