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 : IMPX - When Will the Dead Money Awaken? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zeev Hed who wrote (278)	4/4/1998 5:07:00 PM
From: sandstuff	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 532

The new products include a BiCMOS process meant for power management. Apparently it is getting a lot hits off their website. Foundry and most of the new products will be centered around handheld portable applications. This is high volume analog/mixed signal. It will be at least six months before we see large volume production off the first of these new products. I see a bright future if they keep going the way they are. (no pun on EL)

To: Zeev Hed who wrote (278)	4/6/1998 11:01:00 AM
From: slob	Respond to of 532

Zeev, Lets get the TAM, PEN, AUP and calculate LNR for EL drivers. I'll try to get the Dataquest numbers, however, in areas like this dataquest is very unreliable. If we want to calculate Gross Profit we need IMPX's die size and an estimate of their yields. It should be possible to get their wafer processing costs from their foundry business. Seems to me that this is a good product bet, it is very much in the same direction as SIPEX is heading. Look at their graph if you want to see what earnings acceleration can do for your stock price! Slob

To: Zeev Hed who wrote (278)	4/6/1998 4:28:00 PM
From: slob	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 532

Zeev, Notes on Sipex's products All of this is from Sipex's web site with some guess's from me. 1) Sipex seems happy with it's current portfolio of EL drivers, I say this because no EL products are anywhere on their new products listing. The newest EL product seems to be a cost down version that uses 2 external caps to set EL Lamp freq and Inductor Pulse freq separately. 2) EL drivers are made in Sipex's 4 inch DI BiCMOS process (I don't think that IMPX has a DI process, anyone know otherwise ?) My guess is that this would be a 1.5 micron to 2 micron process. I say this because 4 inch equipment is all 5 year old stuff. Based on this I would assume that IMPX's device might be a little bit larger than Sipex's. 3) Smallest Sipex Die size is 1498 * 1168 based on a 4 inch wafer this should yield about 3500 possible die with about 60% probe yield ( low because of known yield problems with DI processes), leaving 2100 Good die per wafer. 4) Cost of chip (Assuming processing cost of $400 /wafer) processed cost of good die = 19c cost of packaging = 7c test cost = 3c package yield = 90% total costs = 31c / chip Assuming volume chip price = 65c Gross Profit margin = 52% 52% is a reasonable margin but it's not great. This could be increased if my yield models are low, or if the process cost is lower than expected. My guess for an absolute low on the process cost would be $300 wafer. Yields could be as high as 95% but this is unlikely on a DI process. 5) Growth of EL driver industry. Lots of semi companies have looked at this technology over the years and never seen the growth that the technology promised. Based on this I'm going to go with 20% p.a. growth for this industry. 6) Problems with EL driver products - Your main market will be to OEM to the EL display makers. This means that there are relatively few possible customers and that those customers are aware of alternatives (not good news for margins). - Most display makers seem to be Japanese, also not good news for margins. Anyway, I'll continue when time permits Slob