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

To: johnd who wrote (13395)	5/12/2004 1:43:07 PM
From: tech101	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13565

IN GENERAL WE'RE PRETTY MAXED OUT ... TSMC Has Wafers -- If Customers Make It Sole Supplier by Anthony Cataldo EE Times 05/12/2004, 7:46 AM ET PALO ALTO, Calif. " Chip manufacturing capacity is getting tight, but Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) says it still has wafers for sale. The only catch is that customers must promise not to send a design to one of its competitors. At chip packaging specialist Amkor Technology, there's nothing preventing the company from bringing up more capacity to meet surging demand. But customers had better come to the table with a reliable demand forecast. Such is the price of doing business in the semiconductor industry today. While those in the semiconductor supply food chain say they can't put a stop to the boom-to-bust industry cycles, they've learned a thing or two about demand management, according to industry executives speaking at a panel discussion hosted by eSilicon. Perhaps most importantly, companies like TSMC and Amkor said they have learned to be more skeptical. With double ordering and reckless capacity expansions a distant memory, the companies said they are being more circumspect this time as the chip industry heats up again. Indeed, though sales and orders are on the upswing at chip companies over the last several quarters, most are still cautious about the outlook. Ronnie Vasishta, vice president of technology marketing at LSI Logic, said double bookings haven't become a problem yet. "Everyone is still saying they have limited visibility," he said. Eelco Bergman, vice president of sales and marketing at Amkor, agreed. "The level of the turns business has decreased, but people are still cautious in their forecasting." Still, the specter of double bookings is very real among some chip companies. Programmable logic vendors, for one, have watched their backlogs swell since March. So far, however, managers are hesitant to use it as a guide for sales potential for fear of getting burned again. "I think we've kind of seen this movie before," said Xilinx chief financial officer Kris Chellam in a recent call with financial analysts, when asked about the company's backlog. One reason is that foundry capacity appears to be tapped out. Ed Ross, president of TSMC North America, said chip customers "need more than the industry is able to provide right now." Still, Ross said there are ways for TSMC customers to gain access to capacity during the shortage. One way is by agreeing not to send chip designs to a rival foundry. Any chip company that makes such a pact will be considered a preferred customer. "The companies that make the commitment to let TSMC be a sole source are in the top tier," Ross said. Others maneuvers include entering into long-term supply contracts or promising that a big portion of volume for a product line goes to TSMC. The company will even provide preferred pricing and capacity to startup companies that show promise. "What we really want to do is be a good partner and have good partners over the cycle," Ross said. But not everyone is ready to embrace TSMC's sole-source model. Mobashar Yazdani, ASIC manager at Hewlett Packard, agreed that forming partnerships with foundries is desirable, but it would not preclude his company from seeking other foundry suppliers as part of "due diligence." "If a design is big we'll second source for sure," he said. "Dual source doesn't mean you don't have a good relationship. It's needed because they may not be able to supply the volume." There could be even more tension building in the supply chain in the coming months. Bryan Lewis, chief analyst at Gartner Research, said the industry may be on pace to grow more than the 22.6 percent his firm had predicted for 2004. "In general we're pretty maxed out right now," he said. siliconstrategies.com

To: johnd who wrote (13395)	5/13/2004 2:03:58 AM
From: tech101	Respond to of 13565

Wafer fabs Lord It Over Fabless Rivals by David Manners, Electronics Weekly Wednesday 12 May 2004 electronicsweekly.co.uk The fabless/foundry semiconductor business model is at risk of being swamped by the greater efficiency of their fab-owning rivals, the traditional semiconductor manufacturers. "For fabless companies - if they are not fully supported - it might be very difficult," Hideo Inayoshi, senior vice president and board director at Renesas Technology, told the Future Horizons IEF 2004 conference in Prague last week. "If many companies support the fabless industry then it might be alright but, in my view, it will be difficult." One problem for the fabless/foundry model is that, at finer geometries, miss-matches between design and foundry capabilities can prove disastrous to yield while foundry capabilities are constantly changing. Designers at integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) can make allowances for limitations in the process, whereas designers at fabless companies may not have the information to do so. Another problem is that the performance limitations imposed by power density levels mean that simply buying the process tools for a new generational node does not give automatic performance benefits from a shrink. Most of the benefit has to come from innovations which are best achieved by the IDMs. A third problem for foundries is that the lithography enhancement 'tricks' used by manufacturers have major implications for designers which are also better resolved in the close-coupled design/manufacturing environment of IDMs. IBM has said the industry's overall first-time-right rate on 0.13µm is 50-60 per cent, but is only 5-10 per cent in foundries. Susumu Kohyama, corporate senior v-p at Toshiba, told the conference: "A lot of foundry companies are trying to improve their design model and work with IDMs and EDA companies. I think the IDM model and the fabless/foundry model will co-exist." Some pooh-pooh the predictions of the demise of the fabless/foundry model. "Good fabless companies create good design flows," argued Tensilica CEO Chris Rowen. "I would say Broadcom, Xilinx, Altera and Qualcomm have actually done OK."

To: johnd who wrote (13395)	5/13/2004 5:33:35 PM
From: tech101	Respond to of 13565

Industry Leaders Propose EPC UHF Gen 2 RFID Standard Press Release Source: Matrics, Inc. Thursday May 13, 3:22 pm ET Proposal Highlights High Performance and IP Free Specifications ROCKVILLE, Md., May 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading technology innovators and global RFID manufacturers, jointly represented as the "Performance Team," have submitted a candidate RFID UHF Generation 2 air interface protocol to EPCglobal for ratification and adoption. The submission proposal meets all the stated requirements of the EPC user community. The Performance Team includes Atmel® Corporation's (Nasdaq: ATML - News) German subsidiary Atmel Germany GmbH, BTG plc, EM Microelectronic-Marin, Matrics Inc, Nanopower Technologies and RFIP Solutions Ltd. This submission marks the merger of the original submissions by the Performance and the Flexworks team members. "The combined passive UHF RFID experience of the Performance Team has led to a high performance protocol specification," said Piyush Sodha, chairman and CEO of Matrics Inc. "We are pleased to be partnering with global RFID industry leaders in the Gen 2 standards initiative." The Performance Team members represent a majority share of the current passive UHF RFID shipments and because they have a global presence, the air interface protocol they have submitted addresses customer needs around the world. The protocol was designed to provide the best possible performance in narrow band regulatory jurisdictions such as Europe and the Far East while maintaining optimum performance where more spectrum is available such as in the US, Canada and Australia. The contributors have also made their intellectual property (IP) available free of any royalties for incorporation into the standard. Furthermore, the Performance Team has designed the standard to avoid using IP from any other known patents, thus negating the need to negotiate licenses as would be the case with RAND (Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory) IP. As a result, this protocol provides a secure means to access tags through the use of a password controlled challenge/response mechanism and encryption of reader to tag communications by means of "one time pads." This allows such features as Kill and Cloaking of tags. The Kill feature may be disabled by users where required for their specific application. One of the guiding principles of the Performance Team was to make the protocol "future proof." While the core protocol is optimized for Generation 2 Class 1, it provides the necessary elements to support future Class 2 and Class 3 tagging systems as envisaged by the EPC user community. A further guiding principle ensures that existing Generation 1 Class 0, Class 1 and ISO18000-6A systems may be upgraded seamlessly to Generation 2. Generation 1, 2 and ISO18000-6A tags may be operated simultaneously in the same environment, which will provide users a smooth, forward migration path. About the Performance Team Founded in 1984, Atmel Corporation is headquartered in San Jose, California with manufacturing facilities in North America and Europe. Atmel designs, manufactures and markets worldwide, advanced logic, mixed-signal, nonvolatile memory and RF semiconductors. BTG is a global technology commercialization company. Its business is finding, developing and commercializing technologies that will shape the markets of tomorrow. EM MICROELECTRONIC-MARIN SA, part of the Swatch Group, is ranked largest RFID chip supplier by both VDC and ABI, and has experience with UHF passive RFID since 1994. Matrics is a global leader in the design and manufacture of EPC-compliant RFID systems and the recipient of the Frost & Sullivan Award for Entrepreneurial Company for 2004. For more information, visit Matrics on the web at www.matrics.com. RFIP Solutions Ltd is an RFID Tag Company, specializing in UHF Tags, systems, protocols and implementation. About EPCglobal EPCglobal, Inc., a joint venture between EAN International and the Uniform Code Council (UCC), is a not-for-profit organization entrusted to drive the global, multi-industry adoption and implementation of the EPC Network(TM). EPCglobal leverages the nearly thirty year heritage of EAN International and the UCC in successfully partnering with industry. The neutral, consensus- based, standards organization aims to make organizations more effective by enabling true visibility of information about items in the supply chain by developing and managing standards for the EPC Network. For more information on EPCglobal, visit www.EPCglobalinc.org or www.EPCglobalUS.org. biz.yahoo.com