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

To: etchmeister who wrote (11770)	10/19/2004 7:07:22 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 25522

VLSI's book-to-bill drops; fab capacity falls below 90% By Mark LaPedus Silicon Strategies 10/19/2004, 6:44 PM ET SAN JOSE, Calif. — The worldwide IC-equipment book-to-bill ratio was 0.81 in September, down from 0.94 in August, according to VLSI Research Inc. on Tuesday (Oct. 19). At the same time, front-end capacity utilization fell below 90 percent in September. Front-end utilization dropped 2.5 percentage points from August to September, but the figure was still at 88.5 percent, according to VLSI Research (Santa Clara, Calif.) The figures are ominous signs for chip-equipment vendors. September was the second consecutive month that the book-to-bill ratio has fallen below parity. Bookings amounted to $3.94 billion in September, while billings were $4.85 billion, according to VLSI Reserch. Worldwide equipment bookings amounted to $3.65 billion in August, while billings reached $3.89 billion, according to the firm. And it goes from bad to worse. "VLSI predicts 3Q orders will be 10-15 percent below the previous quarter and order activity will remain dismal for the rest of the year," according to the firm. "Nevertheless, the industry is poised to post 55 percent revenue growth for the entire 2004 on account of the very strong performance during 1H04." VLSI projects that the book-to-bill ratio will hit 0.84 in October, with front-end capacity coming in at 86.2 percent.

To: etchmeister who wrote (11770)	10/20/2004 5:58:45 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 25522

In a conference call with analysts, Chief Executive John Daane said Altera expected to grow next year, after capping 2004 with declining revenue. "Unless there is a significant end-market meltdown, we feel very comfortable that we are going to grow in '05," Daane said. yahoo.reuters.com

To: etchmeister who wrote (11770)	10/21/2004 8:22:01 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 25522

TI preps 'Hollywood' chip for cell phone television By Peter Clarke Silicon Strategies 10/21/2004, 7:46 AM ET DALLAS, Texas — Texas Instruments Inc. is developing a single-chip digital television receiver and processor called "Hollywood" for deployment within mobile telephones, the company said Thursday (Oct. 21). TI is collapsing the traditional three-chip solution for such digital video receivers, which includes a tuner, an OFDM demodulator and a channel decoder processor and previously found in set-top-boxes, into a single chip for digital TV phones. Hollywood is designed to interface with TI's OMAP processor technology, which handles the multimedia processing of the TV content, to provide a complete TV receiver system for wireless handsets. Hollywood is being designed to be implemented in a 90-nanometer manufacturing process with samples due to go to customers in 2006, TI said. The combination of Hollywood plus the OMAP processor would allow handset manufacturers to create TV cell phones in time for the first mobile digital TV infrastructure mass deployments in 2007. Field trials are currently underway in several regions, including the U.S., Europe and Japan. TI did not say whether Hollywood would be implemented in a CMOS or BiCMOS process techology. "TI's new Hollywood digital TV chip will combine the two biggest consumer electronics inventions of our time — the television and the cell phone," said Gilles Delfassy, TI senior vice president and general manager for TI's Wireless Terminals Business Unit. The Hollywood digital TV chip is intended to support newly-established open digital TV broadcast standards for the wireless industry, TI said. While no single standard will be used worldwide, TI believes that the most prevalent standards will be those that are open and non-proprietary, including Digital Video Broadcasting - Handheld (DVB-H), which was developed for Europe and is expected to extend to North America, and the Japanese specification, Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting - Terrestrial (ISDB-T). "Hollywood" will support DVB-H and ISDB-T. Dedicated wireless networks supporting these standards will feature live broadcast TV at 24 to 30 frames per second paired with full audio and these networks could support pay-per-view programming, interactive television, and menu/guide systems, TI said.