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

To: Jim Oravetz who wrote (2839)	1/28/2004 12:04:17 PM
From: Jim Oravetz	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2882

IC Insights: Processors in Transition, Memory and DSPs on Upswing By Jessica Davis -- Electronic News, 1/26/2004 ....Beyond Processors Processors make up a small piece of the IC pie, however, as other products showed impressive growth rates in 2003. Revenues from flash memory saw 49 percent growth year-over-year, followed closely by 47 percent for communications/special purpose logic. In fastest growth for number of units sold, data conversion products led the pack at 59 percent growth year-over-year. Digital signal processors achieved 53 percent growth in unit sales. IC Insights is projecting that 32-bit microcontrollers and flash memory will fare best in 5-year compound annual growth rates at 23 percent. Communications/special purpose logic will grow at a 21 percent rate, digital signal processors at a 19 percent rate and DRAM at a 17 percent rate. While DRAM continues to dominate the memory market, holding 51 percent in 2003, flash memory continues its slow gain, reaching 36 percent of the market in 2003. By 2008, DRAM will reach $36.9 billion in sales compared with flash, which will reach $32.3 billion that year. Today's spread is considerably wider. DRAM in 2003 reached $16.6 billion in sales while flash saw $11.6 million. But although DRAM continues its market dominance in memory, companies are using flash as the process leader for memory, scaling that down to the next node first. For example, Samsung is currently at 90 nm for flash but won't be there for DRAM until Q3, said Matas. "Flash memory is almost a full year ahead of DRAM when it comes to process technology," he said. Emerging from a tough 5 years, DSPs are expected to pick up momentum and do very well over the next 5 years, according to Matas. "Over the last 5 years they took a spill. ASPs dropped quickly, which was good for consumers. With the SARS outbreak and the build up to Iraq, there was a negative feeling over the whole DSP segment," said Matas. "We now expect DSPs to grow really well over the next 5 years."