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To: Guy Peter Cordaro who wrote (17754)	3/24/1999 8:56:00 PM
From: MileHigh	Respond to of 93625

Micron Technology beats estimates By Janet Haney, CBS MarketWatch Last Update: 7:31 PM ET Mar 24, 1999 Earnings Surprises BOISE, Idaho (CBS.MW) -- Micron Technology reported better-than-expected second-quarter earnings after the closing bell Wednesday, bolstered by improved margins in its semiconductor operations. The Boise, Idaho-based company (MU) said it earned 11 cents a share, excluding a one-time charge for a write down of its flat panel display assets. Analysts surveyed by First Call had expected Micron to earn a penny per share. Including the charge, Micron reported net income of $22.4 million, or 8 cents a shares, vs. a loss of $50.9 million, or 24 cents in the year-ago period. Revenue for the second quarter was $1.03 billion vs. $763 million in the year-ago second quarter. Semiconductor memory product sales rose to $697.1 million from $283.4 million in the year ago period. See press release. Personal computer system sales fell to $309.5 million from $396.5 million a year earlier. Gross margin on the company's semiconductor operations grew to 32 percent in the second quarter from 9 percent in the first quarter. Company officials weren't immediately available for comment. The company scheduled a conference call with analysts Wednesday afternoon. Shares of Micron stock gained 1 3/8 to close at 52 ahead of the report. Janet Haney is an online reporter for CBS MarketWatch.

To: Guy Peter Cordaro who wrote (17754)	3/24/1999 9:01:00 PM
From: George the Greek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

I'm not making a judgement about the viability of the tech, and I don't know if it'll be a flop, but these are the kinds of real-world engineering issues invloved in pushing clock rates so high. You want to clock these babies at 400MHz, and run 1.6Gbyte/sec data rates? Well, it seems they get that by having low voltage swings. (Low voltage chips in devices like cellphones not only permit running higher clock rates, but save power, probably the dominant consideration in battery-powered devices) When you have low operating voltage swings on clocks and other signals, tolerable noise is less as a proportion of the swings (low noise margins). How this plays out? I'm clueless. Not a hardware nor a device engineer, George

To: Guy Peter Cordaro who wrote (17754)	3/24/1999 9:52:00 PM
From: Alan Bell	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 93625

These articles don't seem to raise any real concerns. There are several implications one can derive from them - * A little more attention will need to be made when designing and testing motherboards. But making boards with a controlled impedance is something that the industry has been doing for a long time. There are very sophisticated cad tools for analyzing signal integrity. * The motherboards may cost a little more than before. But getting 28 ohm impedance is quite achievable. They may need more layers. * It is good to see that Intel is putting out design notes describing the salient design issues. * We know the signal margins are tight. But this is not a concern in itself. ECL circuitry, which has been around for many years, has small signal levels and tight noise margins. * It would be easy to cut corners (for cost) and not follow good design guidelines and get a marginal motherboard that was unreliable. It probably makes sense to only buy these motherboards from first tier suppliers initially. -------------------- While good ground plane based boards are the norm of the industry, it is interesting to note that the original Nintendo rambus systems had no ground planes. They were forced to do this because of cost considerations. Yet these work just fine at high speed. -- Alan