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To: jameswallen who wrote (6598)	1/17/2003 10:21:53 AM
From: jameswallen	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10714

Alex Guana is at Warburg. Duh! 01-17-2003 CIBC Wrld Mkts Coverage Reiterated at Sector Outperform, target price $32 01-17-2003 UBS Warburg Coverage Reiterated at Reduce , target price $15

To: jameswallen who wrote (6598)	1/17/2003 10:27:16 AM
From: slacker711	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10714

Curiously, Cree expects to expand capacity by several times using the current equipment through productivity and yield improvements. I thought that this was one of the most interesting tidbits from the call. As far as I know....they havent ever revealed their yields beyond indicating the fact that yield may have improved significantly or not improved as much as planned. This seems to indicate that yields are still below 30%. How else can you improve capacity by several times? It's hard for me to believe that you can get that big an expansion in capacity through productivity improvements. If the yields are really that low, it means that Cree has huge room to still improve their profitability. Anybody know what the yields are on other next generation materials? GaAs or GaN? Slacker

To: jameswallen who wrote (6598)	1/17/2003 10:34:58 AM
From: jameswallen	Respond to of 10714

Chuck was also asked a question about the Asian competition, the rumors about huge CAPEX for manufacturing, and how that might affect Cree. He pointed out that most of these manufacturers also produce red HB-LEDs. There is no way to know how much of that capacity was for the blue LEDs.

To: jameswallen who wrote (6598)	1/17/2003 11:06:20 AM
From: w2j2	Respond to of 10714

James, excellent points. Note that the V.P. of operations is stepping aside to another Cree job "to spend more time with his family". I bet he has been working 18 hours a day to ramp production to meet demand. Thanks go out to him for Cree's great performance. wj