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: shane forbes who wrote (12254)	5/9/1998 5:19:00 AM
From: shane forbes	Respond to of 25814

sumnet.com ---- From Page One of Electronic News: May 4, 1998 Issue Logic Is Siemen's New Target By Gale Morrison Sandston, Va.--Ulrich Schumacher, Siemens Semiconductors president/CEO, used Tuesday's grand opening crowd here at White Oak Semiconductor to emphasize the unit's new direction. Although Siemens originally conceived the new fab as a DRAM facility, he told the gathering of suppliers, customers and local officials that Siemens Semi will double revenues and quadruple the number of people it employs before 2000 and it will do so through a full-blown "logic offensive" already under way. Peter Bauer, the new president/CEO of Siemens Microelectronics, Inc., the U.S. company, said Siemens goal is to reduce DRAM revenue to just 30 percent of the total, by becoming a pre-eminent ASIC supplier in three high volume areas: communications, computer peripherals (especially mass storage), and ironically for all the collaboration between it and Motorola, automotive. Siemens believes strongly that it can best the competition, which includes NEC across the board, with its ever expanding line-up. Mr. Bauer said that the new Carmel DSP (a competitor to Lucent Micro's Sceptre chipset), its Tri-Core microcontroller (facing Motorola's M-Core microcontroller), and capability for computer storage ICs with this IP and the ability to embed DRAM, are behind his confidence. Adaptec purchased Symbios Logic just last month to gain greater share of that space. Siemens has already taken aim aggressively at the DSP market (EN, Jan. 19). And, it was a sign of strength that Siemens licensed the Carmel DSP core to LSI Logic (EN, April 27), the largest standalone ASIC company. Though Mr. Bauer declined to describe how much of its current and planned business will be internal, he gave the standard answer that internal customers are treated exactly the same as external ones, and Siemens Semi is strictly a merchant supplier. Nevertheless, Siemens is expanding its operations that would consume DSPs--telecom infrastructure equipment and wireless handsets--just as aggressively as it is expanding its semiconductor business. Also, Siemens recently dedicated a Fiber Optics business unit to sell its optoelectronics products into that hot market (EN, April 27). For DRAM, which has become 40 percent of Siemens revenues only because of the drastic price erosion the industry is suffering, White Oak is the fourth memory plant opened in the last two years. One attendee at last week's event noted that "it's a heck of a time to add that much DRAM capacity." Siemens has brand new DRAM lines in Hsinchu, Taiwan, Dresden, Germany, North Tyneside, U.K., and now Sandston, near Richmond. Only White Oak and Dresden are producing 64 megabit DRAM at 0.25-micron geometry. Unanswered is the question whether Siemens can truly best NEC, Motorola and others. NEC may be weathering difficult financial times, but it has an imposing store of IP from decades of deep pocket R&D. And Motorola has new found strength in the automotive market with the MPC555, for which a big German auto company is about to come forward as the customer. ---- Shane.

To: shane forbes who wrote (12254)	5/9/1998 5:27:00 AM
From: shane forbes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25814

A summary of all the bad news in the industry: sumnet.com ---- From Page One of Electronic News: April 27, 1998 Issue Slowing Electronics Industry? By Lewis H. Young Compaq has reported a one cent-a-share profit in 1Q98, blaming inventory problems for the debacle. It shut down manufacture of some models of PCs at its Houston plant for two weeks in April. IBM reported a 13 percent profit decline in the quarter, also blaming PC inventory problems. Intel plans to reduce staff by 3,000 over the next six months after its 1Q earnings fell 36 percent. National Semiconductor announced a layoff of 1,300 people, citing slower sales. Motorola too had a disappointing first quarter, blaming slumping sales of cellular phones and pagers. The semiconductor equipment book-to-bill dropped to a perilous 0.8 in March after a steady monthly drop since December. Revenues of the major disk drive companies have tumbled, some by as much as 50 percent. That is enough bad news to make industry observers feel that the electronics industry has entered one of its regular cyclical slowdowns. And if this quarter's financial news was mainly bad, worse is yet to come. Sales of systems are slowing and that translates rapidly into diminished sales of semiconductors and passive components. Although some marketing people insist that sales of PCs, a major driver for growth of semiconductors and peripherals, continue to grow, other evidence grows that shipments are now declining. Part of the problem has been the economic slowdown in Asia. In Japan, for example, shipments of PCs declined more than 2 percent last year, with NEC's shipments, which dominate the market, off 7 percent. Semiconductor makers in Japan and Korea have slowed down their purchase of manufacturing equipment because of the lack of financing to build new fabs. And many have had to curtail their purchases of design automation software. Squeezed for funds, several Asian countries, like Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have slowed or cancelled infrastructure projects that included the installation of cellular phone systems. And China, which has seen both its economic growth and its foreign investment slow, has cut back on plans to install new paging systems and new cellular phone systems. Still another problem has been the steady move to PCs that retail for $1,400 and less. Initially the inexpensive PC was a product designed for the consumer market, but now corporations have discovered that many of their employees can do what they have to--mainly word processing, spread sheets and E-Mail--with these less expensive machines. Finally, many segments of the industry suffer from overcapacity. This has been true in the DRAM market, the SRAM market, the flash memory market, the liquid crystal display market, the PC market, the disk drive market and the cellular phone handset market. Another sign of a slowing industry is the increased pace of consolidations that are taking place: Compaq acquiring Digital Equipment Corp., Acer acquiring Siemens-Nixdorf's PC manufacturing, NEC buying most of Packard Bell, Vishay buying Temic, Adaptec buying Symbios, WHO buying GEC-Plessey's semiconductor operation. Many electronics companies are battening down their hatches for the storm they see coming. They are laying off workers, closing factories and trimming less profitable product lines. ---- Shane.