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 : LSI Corporation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Duane L. Olson who wrote (10295)	3/1/1998 1:56:00 AM
From: shane forbes	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 25814

more on LU making inroads: njo.com As for microchips, Lucent is building a $1 billion joint venture plant in Singapore to produce more semiconductors and increase market share in foreign markets. Competitors in the microchip business include Texas Instruments, SGS Thomson, LSI Logic and Motorola. Lucent sells more than half its chips overseas. Lucent makes chips in Orlando, Fla., as part of a joint venture with Cirrus Semiconductor. It uses a 0.35-micron manufacturing process to etch tiny transistors on silicon wafers the size of a thumbnail. This spring it will adopt a 0.25-micron process. The smaller the transistors, the faster the chip. "The next technology we are working on in partnership with NEC is 0.18 microns," said John Dickson, who was named in December to head Lucent's Microelectronics Group, where 150 people are employed in Berkeley Heights. "In the early part of the next century, we will be shipping those wafers." Dickson said Lucent wants to reduce the number of chips in a cell phone. "Ultimately, we will get down to one single chip in the next two or three years" to process signals, he said. Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson and Sony use Lucent chips in their cell phones. Eventually, people will take a home-based cordless phone with them when they drive to the mall. In five years, such a phone will be smart enough to know when it is on the road, where air time is expensive, and when it is near the house, which allows for cheaper rates. "Corded phones and cellular phones at some point are going to merge," he said. Lucent is a leader in making chips that process digital signals and convert them to analog voices that humans can understand. "The next step would be to translate the signal into another language," said Lucent spokesman Michael Jacobs. "There are all sorts of places in the world where people would like to give a voice command" to their phones. Lucent also makes chips for makers of data-storage hard drives such as Seagate and Quantum. "It used to take a dozen chips to run the disk drive in your PC," Dickson said. "Now, we're down to half a dozen, and we're moving in the direction of a one-chip disk drive. It's a trend throughout the industry." Lucent also is working with Mitsubishi to decide how to make chips for high-definition TV set-top boxes. The company also is developing technology for digital audio radio that will eventually appear in luxury cars: "You'll have that capability in vehicles in four years," Dickson said. "You'll get CD-like quality in a car radio. If you listen to Mozart, you can store the name of the composer and the name of the record company." Lucent already supplies electronics for a cell phone contained in a car stereo as part of a joint venture with Blaupunkt.