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Lam Research – Uptick is Here – More to Come

While I try really hard to avoid the quarterly earnings brouhahas I think it is worth it to mention a few things about the report Lam Research released last night. Suffice to say, Lam beat expectations and guided the next quarter higher than expectations. We have been discussing amongst the INFRASTRUCTURE minions [...]

Inside WD’s Flooded Thai Factory

Earlier today Samsung and Acer noted the impact the Thai floods will have on their business. Here are some pictures from inside Western Digital’s Thai Factory:

Inside WD’s flooded Thai factory • Channel Register.

I sent this to a few of my friends in the industry. One industry exec had this to say:

It turns [...]

Chipmakers Invest Big in NY

Kick-starting the 450mm transition and collaborating to improve the 300mm regime, the state of New York signs 5 industry heavyweights to put some big skin on the table ($4.4 billion to start). Intel is going as far to relocate their 450mm development facility to the area. Other participants include IBM, Samsung, [...]

Novellus: Customers are Incrementally More Cautious

Following on the heels of the lower-than-expected guidance from Applied Materials just a short week ago, Novellus provided investors with a mid-quarter update after the close of today’s trading session.

In a nutshell: Customers of Novellus have become incrementally more cautious and they have curtailed their expansion plans. CEO Rick Hill said a contagion [...]

Electronics Enters and Era of ‘Systemic Risk

From EE Times and yesterday’s Global Foundries Conference we hear from several industry leaders. The header for the discussion:

Electronics enters era of ’systemic risk’

During a panel at the conference Aart de Geus, chief executive of Synopsys, had this to say:

“We’re not just dealing with silicon scaling complexity but with a [...]

Micron 2011 Summer Analyst Conference

Earlier this week Micron held their Summer Analyst Conference. As always, there’s some interesting data in their presentation. The first link sends you to a document that is 77 slides long so you might want to peruse it in the off hours.

Things I find most interesting:

WW DRAM capacity will not exceed levels [...]

IC Market to top $300 billion in 2013

This is one of those stories that has been floating around the semiconductor industry since the mid 90’s:

IC market to top $300 billion in 2013 – ElectroIQ.

However, IC sales will exceed $300 billion for the first time in 2013. The IC market first topped $10 billion in 1980, $100 billion in 1995, and [...]

Applied Materials and the Semi-Equips

I suppose I could comment on HP and the news from Apple but there’s plenty of fodder for that on the worldwide InterTubes. Instead, I thought I would wordsmith a few comments about yesterday’s report from Applied Materials.

I’ve said it and heard it from others in the industry: “The Achilles heel for [...]

Roundabout: Semi-Industry Deconsolidation, IBM, Intel, Apple, Death of the PC

Until a bit of the dust settles on Wall Street I’ve decided that it is best to cruise the modern InterTubes for stories about the chip industry. Here are a few that I have been pondering:

Over on the EE Times website Mentor Graphics CEO Wally Rhines writes a piece about the deconsolidation in the chip [...]

Canaries in the Chip Mine

Over the years a number of companies in the semiconductor and semiconductor equipment community have been labeled as “Canaries in the Coal Mine.” Back in the mid-90’s my partner(s) at INFRASTRUCTURE tagged wire bond equipment supplier Kulicke & Soffa as one of the most important canaries. We had several reasons for doing [...]

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