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Technology Stocks : Semi Equipment Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Return to Sender who wrote (17507)	8/1/2004 2:23:37 PM
From: Return to Sender	Respond to of 95761

New Wafer Fab Construction at Highest Level Ever Online staff -- Electronic News, 7/30/2004 reed-electronics.com Despite the first signs of uncertainty about sustained growth in chip sales, construction activity for new wafer fabs is at the highest level ever and is expected to continue into next year, according to the latest research from Santa Cruz, Calif.-based Strategic Market Associates (SMA). The market research firm reported 19 new fab projects expected to start or restart construction in the next four quarters with 28 fabs coming on line during the same period. “We continue to see announcements of new projects, despite the caution evidenced recently by some analysts. All these news fabs coming online and being built are going to need equipment. These new fabs should sustain spending growth well into next year,” said George Burns, president of SMA, in a statement. Capital spending is expected to grow 55 percent this year and could rise an additional 30 percent next year with most of this year’s capital spending coming from companies based in the Asia-Pacific region and Japan, which together account for two-thirds of total spending, SMA said. U.S.-based companies continued to trail Japan in spending at $10.4 billion versus $10.7 billion, respectively. As recently as 2002, U.S. companies outspent all other regional groupings. In terms of new construction, most will be 300mm as DRAM fabs and foundries continue to move to larger wafers as evidenced by all three of the 15 new fab projects that started work in Q2 running 300mm processes, including the first 300mm fab in China, SMA added