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Technology Stocks : SILICON STORAGE SSTI Flash Mem -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Richard Wang who wrote (144)	2/4/1998 11:43:00 AM
From: Smilodon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1881

Richard, No great analysis on my part. I am hearing that DRAM and SRAM prices are firming. Korea has almost no access to capital for fab expansion. Japan is on the fence as far as capital spending. Some Taiwan DRAM fabs are looking to convert to foundries. (All this from the Montgomery Tech conference presentation of Semi-Cap companies and a discussion with a DRAM analyst who just returned from Taiwan) While Flash pricing is still weak, it should improve along with the rest of the memory components, although probably a bit later in the cycle. End user demand is still growing at 40% plus. Flash pricing turned down later than the other memory types in 1996. Some foundries shifted production to flash because of this. It will probably take a little longer to recover. So I looked at the current recovery of DRAM and SRAM and used a SWAG to get 2 or 3 months for Flash to stabilize. Also, the company has said they expect a good 2H98. They also have new products starting at that time. This includes memory for a Palm Pilot clone and the liscensing contract with Analog Devices (I think). Their CFO just resigned. That was a real loss, I had a lot of confidence in him. But, at this stage their success is driven by the semi cycle, their engineers, and their manufacturing. They seem to have a tight financial mentality already.