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Technology Stocks : Vitesse Semiconductor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Craig Wilson who wrote (2232)	2/4/1999 3:32:00 PM
From: Trader Dave	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4710

The most important point in chris's fabulous post was not the technology, but the END market. In a similar fashion to PMCS over the last several years, Chris observed that VTSS often trades with other GaAs semi vendors. (PMCS often traded with other semiconductor vendors, even if they were pc semi vendors rather than WAN data transport vendors.) That silliness creates opportunity. If you want to hedge your GaAs bet on VTSS, you should focus on any vendors that are trying to create data communications semis using SiGe chips. We're in VTSS because of the end market they serve and the demand drivers for that end market. IMO, that's the first metric you should use in evaluating any semi chip vendor. TD

To: Craig Wilson who wrote (2232)	2/4/1999 5:33:00 PM
From: Beltropolis Boy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4710

Do you know who is making (or trying to make) SiGe chips? It might be nice to hedge our bets with another technology. craig. for the record, IBM's Microelectronics Division pioneered SiGe technology, but as TD excellently emphasized, it's the end market that matters. VTSS got over half (51%) of its FY98 revenue from SONET/SDH products in the fiber-optic telecom arena. if you're looking for names, PMC-sierra excluded, the company that most often comes up as a VTSS competitor is applied micro circuits (AMCC), which signed a deal in july to use IBM's SiGe technology for both SONET and ATM applications. VTSS and AMCC even share a few customers: alcatel and cisco come to mind. however, if you look back, history has already shown that many bipolar silicon players have opted out of the market (e.g., AMD, fujitsu, NEC, and texas instruments). so while GaAs isn't exactly easy to produce, it's now arguably become a simpler manufacturing process. for VTSS, anyway. I also think it's significant to note that the big telecoms who buy these integrated circuits don't switch suppliers lightly. VTSS has locked up a number of customers on GaAs and the switches lucent, ericsson, et al. make from them don't exactly come cheap. If you're looking for info on SiGe specifically, i've found techweb pretty handy. Here's a "SiGe" search link of the site: techweb.com do let us know what you do or find, -chris.