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Technology Stocks : Micron Only Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DavidG who wrote (28550)	2/17/1998 4:41:00 PM
From: yousef hashmi	Respond to of 53903

Struggling TI-Acer Scraps Taiwan IPO Plans (02/17/98; 3:48 p.m. EST) By Mark LaPedus, Electronic Buyers' News Troubled Texas Instruments-Acer has quietly scrapped its initial public offering on the local stock exchange, following losses and rumors of a restructuring of the company's future DRAM charter. Hsinchu-based TI-Acer's actions follow reports that its key investor, Texas Instruments in Dallas, may be retrenching from the DRAM business, analysts said. In the last month, TI scrapped a joint DRAM venture in the U.S. with Japan's Hitachi, while delaying a 1-gigabit memory project in Japan. The future of TI-Acer also remains unclear. TI-Acer, a joint DRAM venture between TI and Taiwan's Acer, hoped to complete its IPO by about this time in order to raise capital for future expansion, but Taiwan's own securities and exchange commission rejected the company's proposal. "Our losses were too big," explained an executive for TI-Acer, referring to the company's ill-fated IPO in Taiwan's OTC stock market. Last year, TI-Acer posted a loss of $141 million, due to a decline in DRAM prices. This follows reports that TI is in discussions to reduce its 33 percent stake in TI-Acer, according to local sources. Acer, which owns a 48 percent stake in TI-Acer, may buy some of TI's stake in the chip maker. TI is also revising TI-Acer's charter, which serves as a DRAM foundry for TI. Under one possible proposal, TI-Acer's now-shuttered, 6-inch fab line may be turned into an independent, IC-wafer foundry concern, sources said. The 8-inch portion of the TI-Acer fab would still make DRAMs for TI, sources added. Other speculate that the entire TI-Acer operation would be turned into a IC wafer foundry concern -- owned and operated by both Acer and TI. Acer itself has made no secret about entering the foundry business. Last December, Acer announced it was looking to buy TI-Acer's 6-inch fab equipment, and would build a new fab in its own science park, just outside of Taipei. It remains unclear if Acer wants to build its own fab. An announcement about the fate of TI-Acer could come as early next month.

To: DavidG who wrote (28550)	2/18/1998 12:29:00 AM
From: Chas	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 53903

David, I have read this, thanks, but data sheets, and product information is always put out in advance of the actual production. If you go back and look at press announcements Micron announced they had PC100 product months ago, yet not one product is released in the market yet that can use it and the final rev of the spec was just released. So, maybe they are trying to give some the impression that they are leading edge, same with 256M sample proto they gave Dell. Others have done the same but did not make such a big deal about it, who cares, but it gave credability to a company who needs it right now. Good trading.