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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lester e. who wrote (13471)	12/16/1997 7:06:00 PM
From: Exciton	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

To All: A Theory: Profitable 0.5 micron DRAM is over forever. DRAM producers have a decision to make. Move to 0.3 or 0.25 technology or exit the business. Staying pat and hoping 0.5 micron prices will recover guarantees failure and is as good as exiting the business. Most if not all of the DRAM producers have eeked out every possible manufacturing efficiency with the current process--yields are maxed out. There is near complete parity in understanding of 0.5 micron DRAM production processes, and so no producer has any sustainable technical/cost advantage over the others. Simply cutting back production and hoping others will do the same so that prices recover substantially will not work. The production processes are so well understood and the capacity so easily brought online that any transient undersupply will vanish almost immediately. This is how the current situation is different than the DRAM glut in 1996. Then, there were still marginal improvements to be made in processes and yields relative to competitors and there was some price recovery--ie no need to order new equipment. Now the 0.5 micron cycle is at an end, period. Some will probably decide to exit the DRAM market. Most, IMO will move to 0.3 and 0.25 processes and produce 64Mbit DRAMS and higher while also trying to diversify their product lines beyond memory. Yes, there may be a short term slowing of demand for equipment from AMAT as the producers make their decisions, but when they make the committment to move forward, where else are they going to turn? Long AMAT.

To: Lester e. who wrote (13471)	12/16/1997 7:23:00 PM
From: Tito L. Nisperos Jr.	Respond to of 70976

Lester, AMAT @35 or a lot higher is not too much to ask as your 81st birthday present if only Investors realize that the problems of people some 10,000 miles away do not necessarily cause problems here...Perhaps those young money managers or the like who are getting rid of their AMAT investments can learn from us Older Guys that the Key to wealth is thru Holding and Accumulating at bargain prices shares of companies best positioned to prosper in the coming years...Sadly to admit, I was once a young man, so independently minded as to have ignored the investment advise of older, experienced investors; if only I heeded their advice, I wouldn't be spending most of my time now in my olden years with eyes glued in front of a computer screen struggling to earn money to survive... 23 years ago at the age of 31 1/2, too proud to "kneel" infront of a Politician just to have a job, left the country of my birth with a vow never to return. Oh, how I wished the Philippines never got Independent from the U.S. to spare the country and it's people from the mess the Leaders were creating...Now in my waning years I realized I can not totally forget, despite its shortcomings, the one I left for good, that it will always remain a part of me...Now I understand that it takes time for a country dominated---400 years by a superpower (Spain), 37 years by another (U.S.) and 3 years by still another (Japan)---to adjust itself being Free and Stand alone steadily...Now, things are getting brighter, now I feel fortunate to have lived in 2 different worlds...now I'm thinking, why not alternately live and enjoy in them, at least to have 2 is better than to have 1...