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

To: Fred Levine who wrote (402)	11/9/2001 11:38:11 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 25522

Fred, Let's not forget the upcoming TFT revolution. Every monitor in existence will be replaced sometime by many TFT's, where before, there were none. Additionally, flash will make its way into nearly every consumer product and become something no person can do without. It's only beginning, yet people are claiming the end is near; short-sighted thinking at best. Regards, brian

To: Fred Levine who wrote (402)	11/9/2001 7:22:29 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25522

Taking inventory of hard lessons from 2001 It seems experience with outsourcing of manufacturing played a major factor in determining which chip customers had the biggest problems with too much inventory in the 2001 downturn. Many PC and computer systems houses had been through downturns while using contract assembly houses to build products, and they "had a pretty tight supply chain and a lot of visibility [on inventories]," said Steve Appleton, chairman, CEO and president of Micron Technology Inc. But that was not the case with many networking communications systems companies, said Appleton during a forecasting press conference hosted by the Semiconductor Industry Association in San Jose this past week. "We were seeing real demand from [the computer houses], probably within 45 to 60 days after this contraction occurred," said Appleton, referring to the start of the current downturn, which was partly caused by too much inventory at contract manufacturers. "In other spaces--in many of the networking communications customers--they had very little experience this type of contraction, and as a result, they did not nearly have as tight of supply chain management as they probably do today," Appleton said. Last year, when business was still booming, "their charter was to get more [products] out at [the door] all cost and make sure you don't miss any shipment because of a lack of inventory," said the CEO. The huge build of chip inventories and delays in correcting the situation played a key factor in this year's plunge in chip revenues, according to the SIA, which is estimating a 31.2% decline in 2001 industry sales (see Nov. 7 story). "Undeniably one thing that was different in this cycle was ... a much higher percentage of outsourced manufacturing by our customers," said Rich Templeton, chief operating officer and executive vice president of Texas Instruments Inc. "And as a result as things got very overheated and everyone was worried only about capacity and how much they could buy in 2000. Things got more out of control in terms of attention to details, attention to forecasting and knowing where the inventory was in at [different] points in the cycle. "Clearly that was one of the things that amplified the demand and inventory growth that we are paying for right now as an industry. That has got to be tightened up as we go through these future cycles," he warned at the SIA forecast press conference. --J.R.L.