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

To: Donald Wennerstrom who wrote (30681)	5/25/2006 8:07:27 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 95396

VLSI Research bumps equipment forecast again Dylan McGrath EE Times (05/25/2006 5:09 PM EDT) SAN FRANCISCO — Due to stronger-than-expected first quarter growth, worldwide semiconductor capital equipment sales are expected to reach $62.8 billion in 2006, an increase of 23.2 percent from 2005, according to a forecast issued Thursday (May 25) by market research firm VLSI Research Inc. VLSI (San Jose, Calif.) forecast 2006 growth of 13.2 percent growth for capital equipment just last month, after originally calling for 6 percent growth back in January. VLSI's forecast for the IC market remained unchanged. The company continues to forecast 8.8 percent growth in ICs, reaching $209.7 billion. The equipment forecast was bumped up due to double-digit growth in equipment sales during the first quarter, VLSI said. Preliminary results of the company's supplier revenue analysis for the first quarter show equipment revenues increasing to $15 billion, VLSI said, up 20 percent from the fourth quarter of 2005 and up 9.5 percent from the first quarter of 2005. During the first quarter, utilization rates averaged 92 percent for front end manufacturing, 94 percent for test and 95 percent for assembly, VLSI said. Chip makers are running out of capacity because they did not invest enough in 2005 to deal with demand, leading to a boom in equipment demand, VLSI said. But the growth may be front-loaded, the firm cautioned, adding citing certain indicators. The equipment-to-IC-sales investment ratio has averaged 31 percent so far this year, well above the healthy investment level of 20 percent, the first said. Equipment spending per square inch of silicon produced has been creeping up since February, VLSI said. IC inventories have been inching up close to the levels of mid-2004, which was around the time when the industry began cutting back production, the firm said. VLSI believes forecasts that equipment bookings will trend downward during the second half of the year.

To: Donald Wennerstrom who wrote (30681)	5/25/2006 11:28:23 PM
From: etchmeister	Respond to of 95396

Amazing how much milage they get out of this option horseshit JP Morgan suggested the underperformance in the group may be due to fears of a demand decline or inventory buildup. Another negative that gets new legs on a daily basis is suspicious option grants. In the JP Morgan Tech Conference, the firm found more negatives than positives for the industry. UPDATE 1-Samsung says chip business bottomed out early May Thu May 25, 2006 9:59 PM ET (Adds quotes, details, shares) SEOUL, May 26 (Reuters) - The semiconductor business of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (005930.KS: Quote, Profile, Research), the world's top maker of memory chips, hit bottom in early May and earnings should improve notably from the third quarter, a top executive said on Friday. FACT BOX 005930.KS (Samsung Electronics Co Ltd) Last: ?621,000 Change: +5,000.00 Up/Down: +0.81% JunSepDecMar Quote Full Chart Company Profile Analyst Research News for 005930.KS UPDATE 1-Samsung says chip business bottomed out early May Samsung says chip business bottomed out early May LCD television sales rise 135 percent in Q1-survey Click here to find out more! Hwang Chang-gyu, president of the semiconductor business, also said NAND flash memory prices had stablised and forecast demand for the chips would grow steadily in the second half. Hwang, whose comments tend to be particularly closely followed by the market, was speaking on the sidelines of the Seoul Digital Forum. "Early May marked a bottom," Hwang said. "If things improve quickly, it could show in second-quarter earnings. Otherwise we'll see a clear improvement in the third quarter." Hwang added that second-quarter earnings would come in "as expected," but declined to provide figures. Samsung raised prices of NAND-type flash memory chips, used in digital cameras and music players, by a "mid-single-digit" percent earlier this month for the first time this year, after seeing chip prices tumble 25 percent in the first quarter. When asked if Samsung had plans to raise NAND prices again in June, Hwang said: "What's more important is demand in growth," adding, that demand was improving with new applications with higher memory capacity emerging. Booming demand for flash memory chips, used in products like Apple Computer Inc.'s (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) iPod, led Samsung to a 40 percent jump in profits in the fourth quarter. But NAND chip prices have slumped since January as extra supplies poured in while consumer demand cooled off. Hwang also said demand for dynamic random access memory (DRAM), used in computer hard drives, had been stable, with notebook computers leading the growth in the personal computer market. Hwang said it was a "matter of time" before flash memory-based hard drives overtook rotating hard disc drives. Samsung on Tuesday said it would release the world's first PCs embedded with a 32-Gigabyte (GB) NAND flash-based solid state disk (SSD) on the Korean market in early June. Shares in Samsung, the country's biggest stock with a market value of $106.9 billion, were up 1.3 pct at 624,000 won at 0146 GMT by 0150 GMT, compared with a 2.18 percent rise in the main index.