Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Texas Instruments - Good buy now or should we wait? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Patriarch who wrote (4304)	3/5/1999 6:47:00 PM
From: gao seng	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6180

TI Preps 'Superchip' To Take Over Hard-Drive Segment ( 3/ 5/99; 4:00 PM EST) By J. Robert Lineback , Semiconductor Business News DALLAS -- Although Texas Instruments' revenue from DSPs grew 29 percent to about $2 billion in 1998, TI management was not happy about DSP and analog sales in the hard-disk drive segment. To quickly fix the problem in 1999, TI on Friday said it will introduce a "superchip" that integrates five ICs for hard-disk drives into a single CMOS device. The superchip will pack a read-channel function with DSP, control logic, interfaces, and memory in a single IC, and it potentially could be the biggest cost cutter in PCs during the next couple of years, according to Steve Sutton, vice president of TI's Storage Products Group. In addition to being able to serve a growing market for cheaper storage in low-cost PCs, TI said it also hopes to reverse its loss of market share in read-channel chips. During 1998, TI's slow transition from an analog to digital architecture for the channel function caused it to slip to second place behind Lucent, said TI managers during a briefing here in Dallas for analysts and the media. The slip resulted in Sutton taking over TI's Storage Products Group in January. The group includes Silicon Systems, of Tustin, Calif., which was acquired by TI in 1996 for about $575 million from Japan's TDK. During today's briefing, managers said the Silicon Systems operation had become too focused on shipping analog-based channel chips while competitors were gearing up for new digital channel architectures. Sutton said a "channel recovery plan" was in place, and the Storage Products Group had assigned more than 100 engineers to focus on CMOS digital channel designs. Samples of the first digital channel ICs for drives are expected to be available in the second quarter. But a much bigger potential for gaining market share in hard-drive ICs is looming as chip makers attempt to come up with lower-cost solutions for desktop PCs, Sutton said. "I believe 1999 will be a pivotal year in this segment," he told the analysts and media. According to TI, the race is now on to reduce the chip count in hard drives from about nine components to four devices. In TI's planned superchip will contain everything but the preamp, motor/servo control function, and buffer memory. "The No.1 cost-reduction opportunity in desktop PCs is the integration of the superchip," Sutton said. "We expect a major discontinuity to occur. There will be big winners and big losers," he added, referring to IC suppliers in the hard drive segment. TI figures the big winners will come from a group of four suppliers that serve the digital functions and read-channel portion of the hard-drive market. These companies are TI, IBM, Cirrus, and Lucent, according to Sutton, who added any supplier counting on independent foundries to support the superchip will find it difficult to keep up with fast-changing customer requirements. If so, he suggested, Cirrus Logic could have difficulty. TI corporate managers said they believe the DSP-based superchip could be one of the company's biggest growth potentials in the near future. "We have a potential to hit a home run in the mass storage business with the ability to integrate a digital CMOS read channel with the rest of the functions," said Tom Engibous, TI chairman, president, and CEO. He sees an opportunity to start a major shift in hard-drive chip architectures, and, he said, "it could result in one of the largest growth segments in DSP." TI's superchip will be introduced in the second half of 1999 actually news was out yesterday on SEG thread techstocks.com so I wonder if this was a major factor in today's movement by industry insiders. Should be some left for the rest of us?