I think all the comments on this are relevant. The guys quoted here are the
$ people who perform for hire. What they say is intended to deal with
particular aspects of their financing and investment offerings.

On the other hand, I had a nice face to face a couple of weeks ago with
Steve Drehobl, who is V.P. of the Microcontroller Division, and he seemed to
have a more realistic view of how technology businesses, including m'chip-
have been effected by the economy. He spoke of customers completing designs
and putting them on the shelf until  the economic cycle begins a noticeable
upturn. He told of m'chips position to stay away from trendy tech, such as
bluetooth. he cited studies from one bluetooth association itself in which
their own projected application growth has been reduced to next to nil
(translation: 90% of all the bluetooth products to ever be developed already
have  been).
Most interestingly, since we all recognize that the world markets are
tremendously "impacted" by what I call 'mass psychology' (most money flows
when most people are fat n' happy), Steve said that they have taken a very
conservative approach, especially in deciding not to try to challenge the
size:performance ratio with new designs based on even reduced size chip fab
processes.  While so many other semi companies have billions invested in
getting below the next nano-size barrier, the technical advantages gained
are slight at best, and m'chip isn't wasting their money in that direction.
Good. They're not using antiquated fab technology either - and they continue
to develop by creating new combinations of current technology. Some of the
'A' version PICs are recent results. IMHO, this is smart business.

So, they're not wasting their money on risky new technology that has no
customers waiting for it. While the econo-politicists make the clumbsy
statements needed to keep their end of the business in line at such
difficult times, m'chip seems to really have a realistic grip on where
technology is and is not going. And it may go nowhere for quite some time
yet. It seems that since most manufacturers are not investing in new
equipment, whenever the economic upturn does come, it will of necessity be a
slow, slow ramp without big $ invested in new designs and tools to make and
market them. His message is that we should all stop looking for the magic
bullet - the next high impact technlogy product to boost the economy
probably isn't coming.

Hey, all semi companies are shrinking right now, are they not? I think that
past it's reliance on the *dead* auto industry that m'chip's conservatism
will keep them in better shape than many others in the coming months,
perhaps years.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: pic microcontroller discussion list
> [mailto:PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU]On Behalf Of Jinx
> Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2003 10:25 AM
> To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
> Subject: Re: [OT] m'chip
>
>
> > Here's an interesting article worth reading....
> >
> > http://www.ebnews.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=8600183
>
> Can someone involved in international business explain a couple
> of things to me please. I've made my uninformed comments
>
> ==================================================
>
> "Since our March 18 Business Update, we have continued to see a
> sharp drop off in business, which we attribute to the impact
> of the war
> in Iraq," the company said.
>
> What exactly is this "impact" and why would it cause a downturn ? I
> sometimes get the feeling that the money traders in the financial
> markets have too much of a role in adversely affecting trade
>
> ==================================================
>
> "Additionally, the spread throughout Asia of SARS, an acute
> respiratory illness, is inhibiting business travel and, in some cases,
> purchasing decisions, as many customers are temporarily closing
> plants to avoid the spread of the disease."
>
> Compared to other killer diseases (eg influenza, malaria) and even
> chronic atmospheric pollution from traffic, SARS doesn't really rate.
> So is the panic concern about it justified ?
>
> --
> http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different
> ways.  See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.
>

--
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