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Technology Stocks : CYRIX / NSM -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Porter who wrote (32091)	5/6/1999 12:02:00 PM
From: Jimmy Liao	Respond to of 33344

Steve, my post was a comment on a couple of threads today and yesterday, so I didn't mean to attribute Intel to you. However, my point is the same- even simple chipsets have to be qualified on a tool set, and have documented mask sets, etc. For example, if AMD uses ASML steppers while National uses FSI, you would need new masks, worry about different clamps and antireflection processes, etc. This takes lots of time, lots of engineering, and new designs from beginning to end. Also, in order for this state-of-the-art fab to be profitable, you need a ton of volume production of high margin parts- chip sets won't give you that, but custom ASICs will. This is the reason that the fab was a money loser for National in the first place. The product started out as a high margin that kept shrinking. Also, low demand did not allow it to ramp to full capacity.