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Technology Stocks : Cymer (CYMI) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Greg Jung who wrote (19896)	10/17/1998 11:33:00 AM
From: orkrious	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 25960

Anyone else notice that ASMLF hasn't had a down day in the last six trading days. It's gone from 13 to 19. Obviously, on the heels of MU ramp up to 15 micron. In percentage terms, CYMI's move was almost as great. Are good times just ahead? Jay

To: Greg Jung who wrote (19896)	10/18/1998 2:47:00 PM
From: neverenough	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25960

More on Samsung... ebnonline.com Samsung resumes capacity expansion at Austin fab by Jack Robertson For the first time since Asia's financial crisis struck over a year ago, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. is expanding its fab capacity, in what observers are billing as a DRAM production slugfest with archrival Micron Technology Inc. A spokesman for Samsung's fab in Austin, Texas, confirmed that the facility's second phase of operations will be equipped and should start producing 64-Mbit DRAMs in February. Samsung had frozen its Austin expansion late in 1997 because of a lack of capital funds. Market analysts said the expansion is imperative if Samsung is to cut its per-chip costs and remain competitive with Micron's surging memory-chip growth. "Producing more DRAM chips to get the lowest cost is the name of the game," said Tia-Min Pang, an analyst at SG Cowen Securities Corp. in San Francisco. "Micron and Samsung are in a race to make more chips-the only way anyone can make money in the DRAM market." Sources said Micron's DRAM bit output could quadruple in 1999, once the company finishes upgrading the three fab complexes it acquired earlier this year through the buy-out of Texas Instruments Inc.'s DRAM operations. Even without the added production, Micron expects to nearly double DRAM bit growth next year through die shrinks at its Boise, Idaho, fabs, according to Steve Appleton, Micron's chairman, president, and chief executive. With a wave of new DRAM capacity threatening to break over the market, Samsung had little choice but to hike its own output, both by adding capacity and by shrinking die sizes, according to analysts. To that end, the company is adding a second production module to its Austin facility that will be equipped with a 0.23-micron manufacturing process. The original Austin fab lines will be upgraded to a sub-0.25-micron process, as will two fabs in Korea, according to sources. When the upgrade is completed, the Austin plant will have more than doubled its capacity to 21,000 8-in.-wafer starts per month. When the new systems come on line, the 0.23-micron processes will nearly match the 0.21-micron wafer production lines that Micron runs at Boise and is installing in the former TI fabs. Samsung officials added that the plant's second phase will help amortize costs for all DRAMs produced at the Austin site. The brewing production contest between Samsung and Micron should also keep alive the debate as to which company will close out 1998 as the market's largest DRAM supplier. After boasting just last month that it was ahead of its rival in the DRAM shrink race, Micron's reaction to Samsung's expansion plans was predictable. "We are disappointed that Samsung continues to spend capital irrationally, adding new capacity in the face of the very high debt-to-equity ratio they are carrying," said Kip Bedard, the Micron vice president of corporate affairs. Samsung is expanding the Austin fab after earlier cutting its capital investment nearly in half-from $1.6 billion in 1997 to about $900 million this year. And the expansion comes at the very time Samsung has been reducing DRAM production in Korea, closing fabs for a week every month since July. The growth plan also raised questions as to how the expansion is being financed. A spokesman for the Austin fab referred inquiries to company headquarters in Seoul, where executives could not be reached for comment. The spokesman did say, however, that no money was coming from Intel Corp., which made a 10% investment in the $1.3 billion Austin fab in 1997 to help build the initial phase. Intel's stake in the plant will now be diluted, given the larger investment needed to complete the upgrade. U.S. sources believe equipment suppliers may have helped Samsung resume building out the Austin plant by extending terms or through partial financing of tools, speculation that Samsung executives denied. Still, Samsung is installing stepper exposure tools from Netherlands- based ASM Lithography, which had earlier arranged financing and leases from European banks for a large equipment order placed by Hyundai Electronics Industries Co. Ltd. In a broader context, Samsung's added capacity runs counter to the plans of many other DRAM producers, which are trimming output and closing memory chip plants. Siemens and Fujitsu, for example, are closing DRAM fabs in the United Kingdom, and Hitachi, Matsu-shita, and Mitsubishi have closed DRAM plants in the United States. Hitachi also sold its interest in Twinstar Semiconductor, a former joint venture with TI, which was then closed by Micron as part of its acquisition of TI's DRAM operations.