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Technology Stocks : IDTI - an IC Play on Growth Markets -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rob S. who wrote (7729)	4/6/1998 8:25:00 AM
From: Darrell D. Conrade	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 11555

I think this is exciting for IDTI and clearly adds to the prospects for their future. This announcement by National will help clarify the direction PC hardware manufactures are headed. Other companies are going to be forced to "get on board" or be left at the station. IDTI may be behind National, but clearly ahead of many of the others. I think the likelihood of IDTI be acquired by another firm just went up, IMO. The race is on, Darrell Conrade

To: Rob S. who wrote (7729)	4/6/1998 10:04:00 AM
From: flickerful	Respond to of 11555

the street seems interested, regardless of details...

To: Rob S. who wrote (7729)	4/6/1998 11:46:00 AM
From: Rob S.	Respond to of 11555

IDTI has some great core competencies and lean and efficient orientation but also has less "critical mass" to through huge efforts into doing SOC. It's not a proven slam dunk at this point. Management has said little about what they are considering to do in this area. Cyrix's MediaGX chip was the first partial SOC type device. It was actually two chips used in a novel architecture that replaced the need for a seperate graphics controller and communications controller. It also uses unified memory so that SRAM is not needed. The UM scheme also uses real time compression of the graphics content which effectively reduces memory I/O bandwidth. The result of this was the success of Compaq's sub $1000 effort. The total system cost is about $100 cheaper than a traditional socket 7 solution. Perfromance is acceptable for the sub par market and new speed grades and enhanced features of the latest spins has helped in that regard. IDTI has the tightest core uP to my knowledge and that should be of great use in doing SOC. They also have vast experience in advanced memories. And they have a virgin effort to do advanced 3D graphics. IBM should help to fill in the gaps. Still, this is speculative and until we hear more about how IDTI plans to approach the SOC issue or otherwise attack sub sub markets, success is not assured.

To: Rob S. who wrote (7729)	4/6/1998 6:08:00 PM
From: Samuel R Orr	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 11555

I read with great interest your comments, and those of many other respondents, about SOC(system on a chip). In particular, you mentioned that National Semiconductor would ultimately need .18 micron technology to add memory(you didn't specify either DRAM or SRAM, but likely both kinds) to the SOC. I come from a processing background with Bell Labs several decades forward, and want to caution investor types that Intel today is trying to shift all its plants to .25 micron, IBM is running .25 micron(and IDTI's C6+ will be run by IBM on it) at their foundry. IDTI's Oregon plant is running .35 micron technology, and Cypress is apparently still running .65 micron technology on its SRAMs. You also might note that AMD has been trying for some time to get its K-6 to yield on .25 micron technology, and only lately has had much luck. It ain't easy! In theory, the concept is to run finer line widths and get smaller die sizes and more die per wafer. That way, the POTENTIAL yield is far better. But if you don't get many(or any) good die with the smaller technology, you are in the tank where AMD has been for the past year. The usable number of die on .35 technology could be larger than those from the same diameter wafer using .25 technology: the ones that don't work can't be sold. I know, I've tried to do it. To feel that National Semiconductor can buy, install equipment, and manufacture with .18 micron technology when neither IBM nor Intel has done it is blowing smoke. What I'm trying to point out is a system on a chip is a wonderful concept, but may be very hard to reduce to practice. Don't count on it soon. You can tell an analyst and quote me. Frankly, I'll bet even Andy Grove would agree with me on this one. Good luck out there, but I see too many fairy tales on P/E ratios and prospective revenues to pass this up. IDTI is well-positioned in both communications and microprocessor areas, has diversified out of their dependence on SRAM, and their earnings should show it over the next four quarters. I'd hate to see them run into SOC prematurely, and toss the present advantage away.