Downturn felt in delays - Semiconductors

The industry's downturn and the colossal slack-off in productivity brought upon by the fear of--and then the dire reality of--deep piece of work cuts is costing companies across the semiconductor image dearly.

Project schedules have been stretched without the 90nm process transition has been pushed back at least 18 month and purchase orders are taking what perceive s like eons to get signed.

"As far as we're be of importance toed the biggest impact of the downturn is family pushing things out in time scale," says John Rayfield, VP of marketing for ARM Ltd in the United States. ARM is the largest pure-play semiconductor P company in the world.

"I don't think designs have really gone away, their time scale has just mov way on the outside It's certainly affected what deals are closing when," he said.

Rayfield said the downturn is affecting ARM's standing in the industry other important ways. single is the "flight to quality" by the agency of customers to only the biggest, strongest and greatest in quantity secure suppliers.

"In the downturn, a fate of people are doing designs and wondering, 'Of my possible suppliers, in five years' time, who can I number on to be there?' " Rayfield said. "ARM is single of those they can enumerate on to be around, and that is helping us to a certain number of extent."

John Ford, VP of worldwide marketing and European sales for Virtual Silicon Technology Inc., said he, too, believes the downturn is hurting those coming up the ladder more than the stay at the top.

"When the regaining comes it will not be, 'The tide rises all boats in the harbor.' I'm seeing real disparities in the rankings, and I await to see that even more pronounced midyear nearest year," Ford said.

The next to the first way the downturn is hurting the semiconductor business is in the way it forces each resource-intensive activity under the microscope.

The downturn is now in its next to the first full year. The most novel layoffs are contributing to a negative feedback noose where job cuts mean les spending means les receipts means more job cuts. EDA executives report that yields are still in like manner tough at 0.13 micron, resources for a like reason tight and projects so prun that a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of work dedicated to the 90nm proces node is being marked non-critical. This certainly means 90nm will not appear in 2003

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