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Technology Stocks : IDTI - an IC Play on Growth Markets -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: musea who wrote (10200)	4/15/1999 10:03:00 AM
From: Rob S.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 11555

IDT has almost nothing that sells into the PC market except for the WinChip. So far I have not seen anything come out of Centaur/IDT that indicates they will make money with that effort. Maybe they will, maybe it will be another dissapointment in the continuing saga of disapointments. <I disagree about the fab decision being ridiculously faulted. The existing fabs were capacity-constrained and used outmoded technology (large line widths and 6" wafers). The choices were to retrofit existing fabs risking costly downtime> We disagree on the new(er) fab. The timing was just awful and may have been prejudiced by the fact that a major stock holder and board memeber is a fab developer. IDT had several choices including 1) building a smaller facility. 2) working out a fab agreement with one of the Asian tigers who were strapped with over-capacity of new fabs and were cutting great deals with American IC firms. 3) Made do with the existing facilities until the next business cycle. At the time IDT built the Oregon fab, the cycle was at its peak, semi equipment was a sellers market, and IDT did not have immediate needs for the facility. By the time the fab was put into operation, the cycle had already started down, prices collapsed and IDT failed to make use of it. It is still a question whether they can make money out of the fab or it will grow old as a drain on profits.