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Technology Stocks : MEMC INT'L. (WFR -NYSE) The Sleeping Giant? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scotsman who wrote (3422)	6/4/1998 12:52:00 PM
From: All Mtn Ski	Respond to of 4697

How about 400 mm wafers?: Will the chip industry need 400-mm wafers sooner than expected? By Jack Robertson OSAKA, Japan -- The global semiconductor industry may be forced to jump to 400-mm size wafers soon after the next-generation 300-mm wafers enter production in the next century, a top Japanese chip executive told the Semicon Kansai conference here Wednesday. Sadao Kondo, president of Sanyo Electric Co.'s Semiconductor Group, said the industry may be forced to move quickly to even larger 400-mm wafers, simply to get enough chips to remain profitable with the predicted slower revenue growth rate of the semiconductor industry. He warned that economic trends that have ruled the industry for the past five years--chip revenues keeping pace with the increase with the amount of silicon produced--may no longer apply. "Since 1993 the value of global semiconductor shipments has increased at an annual rate of 17.1%, keeping pace with a corresponding 17.4% annual growth rate in the silicon area under production," he said. "But SIA [Semiconductor Industry Association] is now forecasting only a 5% a year revenue increase through 2012." His call for 400-mm wafers came during the same Semicon Kansai session detailing the many challenges facing the industry is trying to get 300-mm wafers off the ground. Hiroyoshi Komiya, executive vice president of Selete, the Japanese 300-mm consortium, reiterated earlier warnings that qualification and testing of a full 300-mm toolset will be delayed by a year, and initial production of 300-mm wafers will likely start around 2002. pubs.cmpnet.com

To: Scotsman who wrote (3422)	6/4/1998 12:54:00 PM
From: All Mtn Ski	Respond to of 4697

Wafer starts: There's life in 5-inch and 6-inch wafer fabs By Jack Robertson OSAKA, Japan -- A semiconductor market report from SEMI Semicon Kansai here disclosed the surprising projection that trailing-edge 5-inch and 6-inch wafer fabs will continue producing about the same number of chips annually through 2003. Yasuo Komatsuzaki, manager of market statistics for SEMI Japan, said that 6-inch-wafer starts around the world will hold steady at just under 500,000 per month for the next five years, while 5-inch-wafer starts will ease slightly to 200,000 per month in the same period. He also reported that 8-inch-wafer starts each year month will continue to mushroom through 2003 to 650,000 per mnth by 2003--a jump from 450,000 wafer starts per month this year. Coupled with rapid die shrinks on the wfaers during this period, this portends a continuing avalanche of chips on the market. With all the attention on 8-inch and the upcoming 12-inch wafers, the long continuing life of 5-inch and 6-inch wafer fabs has received little attention. Although yields of the old fabs are far behind modern 8-inch plants, these venerable facilities have been depreciated for years and so continue to be low-cost operations. The majority of 5-inch and 6-inch fabs are in Asia--particularly Japan and South Korea--although a bevy of U.S. logic-chip makers also continue to operate the smaller wafer size plants. Komatsuzaki predicted minimal 12-inch wafer starts in 2001, ramping up to 100,000 starts a month by 2003.