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Technology Stocks : Applied Materials No-Politics Thread (AMAT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (311)	11/6/2001 1:26:40 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 25522

Foundry wafer prices: Still hanging tough, but for how long? By Jason Blackwell, Semico Semiconductor Business News (11/06/01 11:21 a.m. EST) Overall foundry wafer prices were down in the third quarter but not by much--1.9% below the second quarter 2001. Although this is the fourth quarter in a row that we have seen overall foundry wafer prices fall, the price decline over the past year has not even been close to the decline that the industry experienced in 1998. And now we are beginning to see some stabilization in the pricing of wafers processed at 0.25 and 0.35 micron. Semico believes that we have found the bottom of the market, and we will begin to see an increase in the number of orders coming in to the foundries. This is reflected in the stabilization of pricing this quarter. Following a steep price decrease in the second quarter, 0.25-micron prices overall were basically flat, with a 0.1% increase overall. The average price for 0.25-micron wafers this quarter was $1,818. In the 0.35-micron category, prices decreased again, but only 1.8% this quarter. The average price for 0.35-micron wafers was $1,390. This can be viewed as a normal decline due to the technology life cycle. The largest price changes occurred in the 0.18-micron categories, with an overall decrease of 4.9%. This follows price decreases of 4.5% last quarter and 4.5% in the first quarter of 2001. For the third quarter of 2001, the average price of 0.18-micron wafers was $1,390. The average discount for volume pricing (greater than 3,000 wafers per month) this quarter was 3.1%, down slightly from last quarter's 3.7%. The range of discounts was also broader, with some process technologies showing discounts of only 1.6%. As demand begins to start picking up in the first half of 2002, Semico believes there will be more price pressures at 0.25- and 0.18-micron process technologies.