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 : Semi-Equips - Buy when BLOOD is running in the streets! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (4308)	1/5/1998 9:19:00 PM
From: Jay M. Harris	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 10921

Brian, this analyst is bullish on INTC spending. The .25 Micron process ramp at INTC would support his thesis during the first half of 1998 as .25 micron equipment is more expensive. The ratio of equipment spending to INTC revenue @ 20% while healthy, may be optimistic. This is because the most bullish of PC industry unit growth estimates for 1998 are for 17-18% growth with the better analysts (IDC & Morgan Stanley) calling for 13% to 15% YOY growth. Intel will not be able to gain market share in 1998 with CYRX and AMD finally having decent product, and having designed into some tier 1 OEM's like Compaq and IBM. Intel is already aggressively lowering prices to stave off AMD at the now "low end" at 233 MHZ.. AMD is having yield problems at 266 MHZ ,and INTC will have 450 MHZ in the channel in q4 '98 as the .25 micron ramp is progressing 6 months ahead of schedual in terms of yield per wafer. INTC is an execution machine and is raising the competitive bar. Now, I have posted on the IPEC thread before about how Andy always talks up his cap ex at the beginning of the year to get the equipment guys to jump into his bed. Once the equipment execs jump in, and give him price concessions, he guides them down on orders over the course of the year. I know this from following IPEC which is Intel's CMP providor and I've experienced it with other equips as well. While it is possible for the $5.4 billion to be spent in 98, I don't believe it is probable. I personally think Andy will blow his cap ex on the Merced Chip (64 bit architecture) around q1 &q2 1999 at .18 micron. This could be the death nail for the clone competition. Frankly, if NT 5.0 with wolfpack clustering was a 64 bit OS, I think Merced would have killed UNIX and the Sparc architechture by the end of the decade. I still believe WINTEL will prevail, although NT 6.0 will be required to take full advantage of the Merced performance before Sparc and Unix are run out of town. Just one man's opinion, jay

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (4308)	1/5/1998 9:41:00 PM
From: Investor2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10921

Interesting link, thanks. The story said, "In 1998, McClean expects Siemens to cut back its spending, but its budget this year is still set at $1.3 billion." This story doesn't sound like Siemens is cutting back too much: biz.yahoo.com "Despite weakening prices, Siemens has aimed to expand production capacity to enable it to become one of the world's ten largest chip makers by the year 2000. In addition to its Dresden plant and the Virginia venture with Motorola, it will add one in England this year and expand a Taiwan site operated with Mosel Vitelic. It expected to produce 85 million memory chips, or D-RAMs (dynamic random access memories), up from 16 million in 1996." Best wishes, I2