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Technology Stocks : ADI: The SHARCs are circling! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim Oravetz who wrote (2823)	10/7/2003 12:51:59 PM
From: Jim Oravetz	Respond to of 2882

OT - Hot Plays in the Chip Rebound Manoj Nadkarni of ChipInvestor.com talks about his favorite picks among makers of semiconductors and semiconductor equipment Q: What are your top five recommendations in the semi space? A: Well, we can talk about a few of our recommendations. Among chipmakers, one company we've recommended is Semtech (SMTC ). They're a midsize fabless [having no chipmaking facilities of its own] company supplying analog chips for PC, communications, and industrial markets. Semtech is seeing good acceptance of power-management chips for notebooks and cell phones. Its bookings were up 7% sequentially. The company is solidly profitable, like other leading analog chipmakers, and its valuation is reasonable compared with peers'. Its operating margins are improving again. We have an accumulate rating on Semtech. The back-end equipment sector looks attractive, and there are some less-followed small companies in this space. One is ICOS Vision Systems (IVISX ) -- it's a leading provider of inspection equipment for chip packaging, based in Europe. ICOS's customer base includes all major chipmakers around the globe. We think the stock represents a good combination of valuation, growth, and profitability. We have a buy rating on ICOS. I do have one more I'd like to mention. It's a company we've followed for some time: Keithley Instruments (KEI ). It's a well-managed small-cap supplier of test equipment for semiconductor chips, wireless handsets, and other electronic components. Their valuation ratios are attractive when compared with peers'. Its bookings were up 22% in the June quarter, thanks to strong growth in the Asia-Pacific region. We think its testers for advanced chips are gaining market share. We have a buy rating on KEI, and I have a position in this stock. businessweek.com