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

To: Bookdon who wrote (9952)	5/21/2004 1:11:36 PM
From: willcousa	Respond to of 25522

I have felt that coming too. When a state-of-the-art fab costs $2 B it washes out a lot of former players. And the cost advantages of the last big move create an even greater gap between those who can afford the new fabs and those who cannot. Plus the degree of involvement of the manufacturer in the processes becomes more critical as the technological challanges mount. Thus a multple whammy. Will

To: Bookdon who wrote (9952)	5/21/2004 2:16:47 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 25522

Sony's 300-mm fab starts test production of Cell processor by Yoshiko Hara EE Times 05/21/2004, 12:05 PM ET TOKYO -- Sony Corp.'s Nagasaki 300-mm wafer fab has begun test production of Cell processors, Ken Kutaragi, Sony's executive deputy president and chief operating officer, acknowledged this week. He declined to elaborate. Sony and IBM Corp. recently announced joint development of Cell processors for workstations to provide a graphics content creation platform by the end of 2004. The first Cell chips will be fabricated at IBM's Fishkill, New York fab, but Sony is also preparing for volume production of the Cell processor, which will be the core of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.'s (SCEI) next-generation game console. Construction of the 300-mm pilot line began last spring on the first floor of SCEI's Nagasaki Fab 2. The clean room is complete and partially completed production facilities are processing wafers. Installation of equipment will be completed by the end of the year. Sony and its game subsidiary has thus far invested 115 billion (about $1 billion) in the 300-mm fab to establish a 65-nm process. The fab will serve as Sony's base for manufacturing Cell processors and other devices fabricated with the 65-nm process. Sony has also invest 36 billion (about $321 billion) on IBM's 300-mm silicon-on-insulator line at East Fishkill fab. Once the 65-nm SOI process is established there, Sony intends to duplicate the process at the Nagasaki 300-mm fab. SCEI's Nagasaki Fabs 1 and 2 served as the production base for core chips for PlayStation 2. But with production processes scaling down, the lines now have surplus capacity and are fabricating other devices such as CMOS sensors. Sony will integrate the two fabs into its main semiconductor operation in July.

To: Bookdon who wrote (9952)	5/21/2004 2:24:53 PM
From: Sam Citron	Respond to of 25522

As the number of device manufacturers get down to a "shared monopoly" point, they can have terrific pricing leverage by controlling the timing of orders. I assume you mean shared monopsony, duopsony or oligopsony, for you are focusing on their purchasing behavior. I agree that this trend tends to shift bargaining power from the semi-equips to their semi customers. By and large, however, I tend to think of the semi-equip industry as a functional duopoly (two sellers), whereas the semi industry is still a consolidating oligopsony (a few buyers), so the semi-equips may still have the upper hand in terms of bargaining power. They may therefore find it relatively easy to collude to maintain firm prices and resist such blatant discount seeking as long as the market is not too soft. But a market share study might be worthwhile to see whether my assumptions are borne out by reality. Sam

To: Bookdon who wrote (9952)	5/21/2004 2:34:12 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25522

As the number of device manufacturers get down to a "shared monopoly" point I view this quite differently, as the top chipmakers comprise a smaller and smaller portion of the total pie than ever, if my recollection of the last capex numbers I have seen is correct. INTC is still the largest by not nearly by the percentage of the total of years past. It is yet to be determined whether this will remain consistent going forward, but I do not see how you could arrive at your conclusion by looking at the raw numbers.