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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (19971)	6/6/1998 1:17:00 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 70976

2 articles from today's San Jose Mercury News: Intel to slash prices up to 20% on Pentium IIs Intel Corp. is expected to slash prices on its microprocessors by as much as 20 percent next week, as the company grapples with a slowing personal-computer market and makes room for speedier chips. Price cuts on its Pentium II chips -- the brains of PCs -- will range from 12 percent to 20 percent, analysts said. The world's largest chip maker also is expected to introduce a faster Celeron chip, designed for PCs costing less than $1,200. It's Intel's third round of cuts this year. Intel used to cut prices regularly each quarter. The company now has moved to a more flexible price-reduction schedule as it rolls out products for different parts of the PC industry to better match demand. Intel's average price per chip has been falling, crimping profit as prices for PCs decline. AND TI, Micron in sale negotations Texas Instruments Inc., a leading producer of computer chips, is in talks to sell its memory-chip operations to Micron Technology Inc., people close to the talks said Friday. While the discussions are preliminary, a sale would be a significant move for Texas Instruments, whose earnings have been hurt by overproduction and declining prices in the market for dynamic random-access memory chips, or D-RAMs. The deal would allow Idaho-based Micron Technology to buy much-needed market share to challenge foreign chip competitors

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (19971)	6/6/1998 1:18:00 PM
From: John L.	Respond to of 70976

The only ones who can survive with 5 & 6 inch wafers are companies that have niche markets. Low demand for a product coupled with a high priced product allows for profits on low volume product runs. I worked for a company that made infrared CCD chips, they made a profit on a 5 inch line, but competitors are always right around the corner looking for an opportunity. The new equipment to do .35 micron and below is expensive for companies with small customer bases and sales. Markets that are growing are not using 5 & 6 inch wafers for very long unless they can afford to lose money to the 8 inch competitors. Size is the holy grail in the semiconductor business, bigger wafers and smaller device geometries, this gives us all better toys at a lower cost.