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

To: willcousa who wrote (47611)	6/5/2001 8:29:23 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 70976

Texas Instruments to Idle 2 Plants Texas Instruments to Idle Two Plants in Dallas, Affecting About 1,800 Workers By DAVID KOENIG AP Business Writer DALLAS (AP) -- Texas Instruments Inc., struggling with weaker demand for semiconductors, will idle two Dallas manufacturing plants in coming weeks, affecting about 1,800 workers. The company will idle a plant that produces analog computer chips from July 2 through July 23, and it will briefly shut down a slightly smaller chip facility from June 30 to July 7, spokeswoman Kim Quirk said. ``It's just an idling in reaction to the sharp semiconductor downturn,'' Quirk said. ``It's one of the methods we're using to aggressively reduce costs so when the market turns up, we're ready.'' The larger plant to be idled for three weeks employs about 1,000 workers, Quirk said, while the smaller plant employs about 800. Most workers take vacation time but some could choose to take unpaid leave, she said. Texas Instruments has five fabrication plants in Dallas, where the company is headquartered, and they have been buzzing in recent years as demand for chips in cell phones and other electronic equipment surged. But sales began to soften in 2000, and the slump has deepened this year, with new orders running at two-thirds the rate of a year ago. In April, Texas Instruments announced it would lay off 2,500 workers -- 6 percent of its work force. That came several weeks after the company closed a plant in Santa Cruz, Calif., began a voluntary retirement program, announced a hiring freeze and cut discretionary spending. Company officials said they expected double-digit declines in sales to continue through the first half of the year. TI's first-quarter revenues fell 17 percent due to weakening demand for its chips in cell phones and other products. Chairman and chief executive Tom Engibous has called the current market ``one of the sharpest decelerations that our industry has experienced.'' In recent weeks, chip maker Intel Corp. (NasdaqNM:INTC - news) asked for volunteers to take two weeks of unpaid leave at a New Mexico plant and Philips Semiconductors announced it would furlough some workers for three months without pay. Texas Instruments has about 39,000 employees. Last year the company earned $3.06 billion on sales of $11.88 billion. In trading Tuesday, shares rose $1.74 to close at $35.99 on the New York Stock Exchange.