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To: rupert1 who wrote (61523)	5/18/1999 4:04:00 AM
From: rupert1	Respond to of 97611

Financial Times - UK Cambridge team claims chip breakthrough By Alan Cane An Anglo-Japanese team of scientists funded by Hitachi, the electronics group, has made a breakthrough in semiconductor memory technology paving the way for lightweight computers, mobile phones and entertainment systems. The advance is the first commercially exploitable development from 10 years of investment in Cambridge by the Japanese company. If the new memories prove successful, Hitachi would lead the way in semiconductor manufacturing. Hitachi established a laboratory in the city in 1989 and forged a partnership with Cambridge University's Cavendish laboratory. The university stands to gain from royalties on commercial products developed by the partnership. The innovation makes possible the fabrication of a memory chip the size of a thumbnail capable of storing all the sounds and images of a full length feature film. The new chips are so powerful that it is thought they will replace present day storage devices such as computer hard disc drives. The Cambridge development also promises to overcome problems of physics which are beginning to slow the development of more powerful conventional memory chips. The partnership has resulted in a number of discoveries in pursuit of the "single electron" memory chip capable of storing 1,000bn bits of information. Haroon Ahmed, professor of microelectronics at the university, said yesterday's announcement was a significant step on the road to high-speed single electron devices. The fastest and most quickly accessed memory chips currently store about 256m bits of information but they "forget" this information if the power is switched off. Physical laws make it hard to design more powerful versions. In particular, faster, smaller chips need power levels which can be difficult to control. The Cambridge chips consume very little power, making them suitable for use in palmtop computers, mobile phones and other portable electronics devices. Furthermore, they retain their memory for up to 10 years when the power is switched off. The new chips are set to be commercially available in 2005. Hitachi technologists in Japan are converting the technology into a form suitable for mass production.

To: rupert1 who wrote (61523)	5/18/1999 11:09:00 AM
From: rudedog	Respond to of 97611

Magee drops the ball again - described microprocessor manufacturing as "a bloody business" The Salem facility has NOTHING to do with microprocessor manufacturing - that was done at the Hudson facility that DEC sold to Intel before the merger. The Salem facility was an assembly plant similar to the Houston and Freemont facilities. This looks to me like a straight capacity analysis - if you have 3 facilities operating at less than 65%, then combining to 2 facilities takes utilization up to close to capacity, which is more efficient, and cuts fixed costs by a third. Also no one said that 900 jobs would be eliminated - there are a number of CPQ facilities in the northeast in addition to new job openings at Houston and Freemont.