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

To: Sam Citron who wrote (7456)	10/8/2003 4:21:31 PM
From: Bookdon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 25522

I don't believe that fab line labor costs are a significant factor in moving fabs to Asia. It is really the reduced cost of safety/environmental issues. Silicon Valley (CA) has hobbled a lot of fabs in this regard. To date, these have often been offset by complications with financing and (in certain countries) government red tape (sometimes US export rules). Manual operations (in the place of automation) in fabs hit yields, and low yields drive up costs. Labor costs can hardly be low enough to balance this.