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Technology Stocks : Cymer (CYMI) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Melkon Khosrovian who wrote (11573)	12/15/1997 7:43:00 PM
From: Melkon Khosrovian	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25960

Japanese companies seek salve in SDRAM -- Hope to recoup losses inflicted by Micron By Jack Robertson Tokyo -- Japan's top semiconductor executives are hoping that a quick ramp-up of synchronous DRAM (SDRAM) devices in the next six months will grab back some of the DRAM market share their companies lost to Micron Technology Inc. this year. Producers can charge 10% more for synchronous devices than they do for EDO and fast-page devices. Such a premium is welcome in a market with razor-thin margins. Demand for higher-speed DRAM devices is being spurred by Intel Corp.'s Pentium II microprocessor and 440LX chip set. Moreover, Japan's companies believe SDRAM is an area in which they have an advantage over Boise, Idaho-based Micron. The executives conceded that after cutting production early this year, they were blindsided by Micron's massive 16-Mbit EDO DRAM buildup and ferocious cost-cutting. "This January, when the Japanese and Korean manufacturers tried to cut DRAM production, we never considered that Micron would ramp up production so much," said Kazunari Shirai, president of Fujitsu Ltd.'s LSI Group. "We had expected DRAM prices this spring would stabilize. But instead, Micron helped create a continued oversupply that only drove DRAM prices lower." The Japanese chip companies said they have learned their lesson and don't plan any further significant cuts in 16-Mbit output until 64-Mbit DRAM becomes the mainstay memory device. NEC Corp., the leading Japanese SDRAM producer, said it hopes that 70% of its 16-Mbit and 64-Mbit DRAM output will be synchronous by April, compared with more than half right now. The company is producing 1 million SDRAM devices per month now and hopes to produce 2 million per month by April. More than half of Toshiba Corp.'s output of 16-Mbit DRAM is synchronous. The company is only beginning to ramp up 64-Mbit SDRAM, but Susumu Kohyama, vice president and deputy group executive of semiconductors, predicted that it will make more than 1 million 64-Mbit SDRAMs per month by the spring. Hitachi Ltd., Mitsubishi, and Oki Electric Industry Co. Ltd. said that more than 30% of their 16-Mbit DRAMs are synchronous, and that they hope to reach above 50% by year's end. The three companies are only beginning to produce limited quantities of 64-Mbit SDRAM. The Japanese companies face a formidable SDRAM competitor in Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. The South Korean company is already producing about 70% of its DRAM as synchronous devices, and next year expects to be at 100% About 40% of Micron's 16-Mbit output is synchronous, and a 64-Mbit SDRAM is undergoing internal qualification. A spokeswoman for the company was not able to predict when the first samples will be available. NEC expects to ramp up to 5 million units of all types of 64-Mbit DRAM per month by the end of 1998. Fujitsu, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, and Toshiba expect to produce 3 million per month by the end of the first quarter of 1998. These production rates are based on the expectation that the bit-parity 4x crossover price with 16-Mbit will come in the first or second quarter of 1998. Copyright (c) 1997 CMP Media Inc. techweb.com