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Non-Tech : Secret Squirrels hit! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Trumptown who wrote (1196)	10/2/1998 1:11:00 PM
From: musicguy	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 12872

Every time I set a ridiculously low target for a stock and wait for it, I do well. I didn't buy at 3, but obviously should have. I did well that way with PAMM, TWHH, LOAN, GMTI, ALYA, and others... I broke that rule with SFC and got caught in the shredder. My most ridiculous target now? ATHM at 32. If it takes a month, I will wait and put everything I have at that moment into it and sit back and wait. If it never happens? Oh well it didn't cost me anything, and I had fun watching. MG

To: Trumptown who wrote (1196)	10/2/1998 9:53:00 PM
From: Tom Swift	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12872

WFR: nice little run today. No doubt this is due to the credit line from the parent company. However, these are still really cheap prices for this company. Keep in mind that I don't day trade and am currently trying to move my money from the crappy P&D stocks I bought when I first started playing this game to stocks that will do well in a 1-2 year time frame. I see MEMC as a real winner for the buy & hold strategy and I am willing to ride out the slump as long as no dilution occurs. Zeev Hed has expressed a similar view on the MEMC thread: Message 5898004 Here is a discussion as to why I like this stock despite the current dismal sales predictions: First, lets look at how silicon wafers are made. The process is as follows: 1. High-grade quartz is reduced with carbon in a high-temperature process to produce metallurgical-grade silicon which is worth $1 - $2 /kg. Most of this (MG) silicon is used in the steel industry. 2. A small amount of the best grades of MG-silicon are purchased by polysilicon and chemical companies. This silicon is digested in a fluidized bed process which results in Si, H, Cl compounds such as silane, dichlorosilane, trichlorosilane and silicon tetrachloride. These (highly dangerous) gasses/liquids are then distilled multiple times to reduce impurities (especially boron) to acceptable levels. At this stage in the process, the cost of silicon in these compounds is ~$15/kg. Some of these compounds are used to make silicon polymers such as silicone and the unfortunate foray into breast implants by Dow-Corning. 3. The better grades of these compounds are used to make electronic-grade (EG) silicon. There are two processes used to make EG-polysilicon. These are the Siemens Process (~$45/kg) and the Ethyl process (~$35/kg). 3a. The Siemens process involves heating a U-shaped "seed" rod in a vacuum chamber by running electrical current through it and cracking the SiH(x)Cl(y) gasses on the hot surface to produce a "log" of highly purified silicon. This process takes a huge amount of electricity and a few weeks to generate a ~ 1 ft. dia. polysilicon rod. These rods are then broken into 1-2 inch sized chunks with (I'm not kidding) hammers and sold to crystal growers. 3b. The Ethyl process cracks Si(H)Cl(y) compounds in a fluidized bed. This process uses significantly lower amounts of electricity and generates small silicon spheres which are extracted from the reactor. There is a loss in this process due to dust formation, but, overall, it is cheaper than the Siemens process. 4. EG-silicon is then melted in pots and single crystal silicon boules are pulled from the melt by the CZ process. The large size of the Siemens chunks are an advantage here since they have a smaller surface area compared to the Ethyl powder (less adsorbed oxygen) and flow down better into the pots. However, CZ-pullers can be designed for Ethyl and are not that uncommon. These boules are then sliced into wafers with a 50% or so kerf loss and polished for sale to IC fabs. (I don't have a cost figure for this step handy, but it is a large value added step -- a six inch wafer is about $80 -- not sure about the weight). 5. The wafers are processed into chips. (until the slump the $/kg estimate was ~$1,000,000/kg for this step). Ok, that's the process flow, now to the point. (1) MEMC is, as far as I know, the only company that has rights to, and uses, the Ethyl process. (2) They are vertically integrated and produce polysilicon, virgin wafers, and epi wafers. (3) They have modern plants. This is due to a capacity expansion after the polysilicon shortage which happened a few years ago. They also (probably) have a bunch of annoyed fabs holding (dumping?) their stock since they required stock purchases during the polysilicon shortage to guarantee deliveries to fabs (which at the time were really hurting for wafers)(private placements? -- I remember it happening but it looks like WFR just went public this year) . Most of the projections I see estimate that the semi recovery will occur in the middle of 1999. I don't know if this is correct, but it seems to me that it is a no-brainer that the second largest polysilicon supplier in the world will manage to survive and will prosper when the recovery finally occurs. This thing is a steal at anything less than $5 if you are willing to wait. Regards, Tom