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

To: Paul V. who wrote (26125)	11/10/1998 11:47:00 PM
From: Artslaw	Respond to of 70976

how do you view the Y2K problem ast it is related to the electricity and embedded chips Unfortunately (for this question) my background is device physics, which is good for semi equipment, but bad for power engineering. I have heard a couple doom-and-gloom Y2K stories related to the power industry. I would guess that the major time aspect of the embedded chips is to calculate relative changes in various aspects of power delivery. As such, I'd have to guess that, with the exception of the exact time they roll over, there shouldn't be an issue (again, note that I have no credentials). Regardless of if you think it is 2000, 1900, or year 0, a 0.01 increase in your power factor over the last second may or may not require a load to be adjusted (or whatever--I'm pulling this example out of thin air). While we are hypothesizing, let us further assume that the chips aren't sychronized all that well (this is a safe assumption), so the transitions will occur over a twenty minute span (let's guess). On top of that, we have several time zones to average the effect out as well. I would also have to stupidly assume that there is a manual over-ride for these things which would allow power companies to allow this transition (where the change of time might give a weird derivative) to occur without anything too bad happening (assuming they can figure out the problem ahead of time, and perhaps more importantly, could access all the effected systems). from a stock perspective won't the lack of compatiable computers and electrical lines create a greater need for semiconductors through the elimination of obsolete computers and their replacement Maybe, but if my relative-time-guess above is correct, then things might work just fine after the transition, too--as long as you get used to reading "1900" on the status reports. All the same, any money you make off of increases in Semis and Semi-equip will be offset by you electric bill. :) Sorry I give such an unqualified long answer! Steve