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Technology Stocks : Atmel - the trend is about to change -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tech101 who wrote (13023)	7/8/2003 8:42:02 PM
From: Big Bucks	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13565

Youlu, Atmel may be too diversified (if that is possible) They have a very large variety of chips and markets that they serve. In one respect, this is good because they can quickly ramp production orders and ASIC is relatively easy to manufacture. Atmel's size may be working against it. It has fabs in the US, France and Germany...I'm not certain how the European fabs are doing from a profit perspective and fabs are notoriously expensive beasts to maintain and I suspect that labor cost in Europe is very high due to the labor laws that are indiginous there. There is also significant competition in the programmable static ram chip market, but I believe Atmel holds significant patent rights on much of the manufacturing of the technology. I am not sure if they are making 1GB programmable ram yet, since I haven't maintained my connections inside/outside the company, but I have seen that someone's is available on the market....but very pricey!!! Hopefully, the market for their RFID chips will explode....I think that will influence their next big manufacturing ramp, but again there is stiff competition with some big players..... I kind of envision Atmel as a "Jack of all trades but master of none" because of their extensive product lines. They are a commodity manufacturer, perhaps they are changing that aspect of their marketing strategy. IMO, they need to have 1 or 2 high price products that no one else manufactures but everyone needs. It seems that the specialty niche players are doing well, unless they are in the telecom market..... BB