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The Circuit
Electronic News staff -- Electronic News, 11/5/2001
United Microelectronics Corp. Hits Bottom with $117M Q3 Loss
Taipei, Taiwan-based United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) last week posted a net loss of $117 million, or a loss of 4 cents per ADS, for the third quarter. This compares to net income of about $421.5 million in the year-ago quarter. Year-on-year net sales decreased 59.4 percent to $346 million from $853 million. This was a sequential decline of 20.3 percent from about $434.2 million.
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Chang |
UMC's chief competitor, No. 1 silicon foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC), said it reached bottom in the second quarter. Last week, TSMC reported third-quarter net income of $35.8 million.
Alliance Semiconductor Acquires PulseCore for $5M
Alliance Semiconductor Corp. of Santa Clara, Calif., last week said it has acquired PulseCore Inc. for $5 million.
PulseCore is a fables semiconductor company specializing in high-speed and low-power mixed signal designs. The company provides electromagnetic interference (EMI) suppression ICs to manufacturers of computer peripherals and digital consumer products. Alliance (nasdaq: ALSC) said it intends to operate PulseCore as a separate Logic Products division within the company.
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Reddy |
Narendar Venugopal, PulseCore's president and CEO, will become the general manager of Alliance's Logic Products division.
Samsung Outlines Memory Production Road Map
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. of Seoul, South Korea, last week revealed its road map, charting its focus on next-generation processing technology for memory production.
Samsung claims to be the first company to start up mass production on a 300mm wafer line, producing 512Mbit double data rate (DDR) SDRAM devices.
This line will be expanded to 0.12-micron production next year, then to 0.10-micron design rules in 2003 and 0.07-micron circuitry in 2004. The company is bullish on its future, expecting annual memory chip sales to reach $20 billion in 2005.
Currently, 256Mbit and 512Mbit chips represent 30 percent of the company's DRAM output, although Samsung plans to raise this to 45 percent by the end of the year. Samsung said it believes its dominance of the Rambus DRAM market will continue. It claims to currently supply more than 60 percent of the Rambus DRAM market and also turn out the equivalent of 10 million 128Mbit DDR chips each month. The company said it intends to extend its position in both these markets in 2002.
In the flash memory market, the company said it would expand its involvement in NOR devices to achieve more balanced flash growth. The company claims to be the first to have mass produced a 1Gbit NAND flash device on a 0.12-micron design rule.
