Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: matt dillabough who wrote (20832)	10/10/2006 2:33:55 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 25522

U.S. reportedly probing private-equity firms George Leopold EE Times (10/10/2006 12:09 PM EDT) WASHINGTON — The government is investigating private-equity buyouts, according to published reports. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday (Oct. 10) that the Justice Department has sent informal requests for documents to several private-equity firms. The reports did not identify the firms or deals under scrutiny. Reports stated that the government probe is looking into anticompetitive practices among private-equity firms. One allegation is that competitive bidding among buyout firms has been muted, resulting in lower sales prices when taking public companies private. A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the reports. Private-equity firms have been increasingly active in the semiconductor sector. In September, a consortium led by The consortium is led by the Blackstone Group that included The Carlyle Group, Permira Funds and Texas Pacific Group acquired Freescale Semiconductor Inc. (Austin, Texas). STMicroelectronics, Europe's largest chip maker, has also been mentioned as a target of a leveraged buyout by private-equity firms.

To: matt dillabough who wrote (20832)	10/11/2006 9:23:22 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 25522

Applied's Splinter confident about industry spend in 2007, has no plan for 18 inches Claire Sung, October 10; Carrie Yu, DigiTimes.com [Tuesday 10 October 2006] Mike Splinter, CEO of Applied Materials, said on October 9 he is confident about the capital expenditure (capex) of the global semiconductor industry in 2007; he also indicated the company has no plan to develop 18-inch wafer production. Estimating high-single-digit percentage growth for global semiconductor-industry capex in 2006, Splinter is highly confident about industry capex in 2007, while being especially optimistic on rising investments from Taiwan-based memory houses. Global semiconductor capex will exceed US$50 billion in 2007, up from US$47.3 billion in 2006, sources said. Nevertheless, Splinter declined to comment on the forecast amounts. As for 18-inch wafer production, Splinter pointed out that there is no demand for the segment, and Applied Materials does not have any development plans for the area. Although sources pointed out that an 18-inch-wafer fab is on Intel's technology road map, Splinter said he does not see any need to enter the 18-inch wafer stage as it took eight years for 8-inch wafer production to migrate to 12 inches.

To: matt dillabough who wrote (20832)	10/11/2006 1:00:30 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 25522

AMD Advanced Micro CPU shortage looms - Inquirer.net (23.78 +0.64) Inquirer.net columnist reports "AMD has to supply millions of its products to Dell (DELL), as it was written in that AMD/Dell contract signed a while ago. However, it seems that channel is getting the wrong end of the stick, since we are hearing reports about shortages of AMD CPUs. Typically, AMD claims it's quite normal that, "low-end CPUs are in shortage due to supply constraints and requests for CPUs with higher ASP." However, this time around, it's not the Semprons missing in action. It's the Athlon single-cores. And it's the Athlon dual-cores. We received e-mails from distributors spread across the globe that AMD cannot supply them with enough dual-core CPUs ordered by computer assembly stores. AMD is not supplying the channel and the channel is getting the hump. Many are asking how they can achieve Q4 sales targets if they're unable to get the CPUs in normal or higher quantities. Some are even mentioning Dell, comparing it to a black hole which eats all AMD can churn out..."