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To: Xpiderman who wrote (1681)	12/10/1998 11:08:00 AM
From: Platter	Respond to of 3813

Another semi warns of problem in sector...From Briefing.com.."CERPROBE CORP. (CRPB) 12 5/8 -2 1/2. An early morning earnings warning by this designer and manufacturer of probe cards, ATE interface assemblies, and ATE test boards is prompting a price retreat of 16% or more. Given the size of the anticipated earnings miss and less than robust outlook seen by the company, it is surprising that the stock is not down by more. According to Cerprobe, it expects To record a Q4 loss from continuing operations of $0.03 to $0.06 a share, well below the current First Call mean estimate for a profit of $0.16 a share. The company blames its earnings woes on continuing softness in the semiconductor sector and request by customers to speed up shipments in the previous quarter. This suggests that last quarter's $0.25 net gain was helped by these early customer shipments which subtracted from earnings in the latest quarter. And it also implies that the stock gains posted in this issue from early October onward are not long lasting as the company still faces many hurdles ahead. Given that the troubles in Asia are not expected to get any better soon, particularly because some of Cerprobe's customers have scheduled shutdowns, this should place further downward pressure on the stock. Before the company reported its Q3 earnings in early October, the stock traded in the $9 to $10 range. We would expect, given the circumstances that prevail, for the stock to again trade in this range."

To: Xpiderman who wrote (1681)	12/10/1998 12:49:00 PM
From: Artslaw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3813

I can comment on it: they did say that! I attended the conference. Their response wasn't really a surprise though, since all semiconductor companies develop the next few technologies ahead of time, so the upcoming process was being developed well before copper was really a viable issue. To compensate for the higher Al resistance, they just increased the aspect ratio, making the lines taller (sort of like making them wider, and then turning them 90 degrees). This probably takes care of the electromigration issues as well. A much funnier part of their paper is where they discussed the drive current of their transistors as being better than any other previously published work, including (specifically) SOI (i.e. IBM). So, with one paper, Intel dismissed all of IBM's (and Motorola, to a lesser extent) press releases for the last six months. Intel is a little more low-key about their technology than IBM. Normally I'd say this is a good thing, but all that crowing by IBM didn't hurt their stock nor their perceived (and apparently undeserved) technical prowess. Steve