Chartered   

CSM/AMD Vs Intel

Yup. Livermore ...It was through those expansions that CSM suffered for the past few years.

But I believe CSM has jumped over those hurdles to reap the fruits now with its Mircosoft, IBM and AMD tie up. Look around, which other company has the luxury to do biz with these 3 tech giants?

If you look closely, CSM's current fundamentals are strong, but banks and institutes are putting a hold on this stock mainly due to the weak PC and excess chip inventory. We have to look far beyond - not stare at the weak tech market now and wait.

Timing and positioning are crucial now. It only takes AMD and Microsoft to make the necessary annoucements in the coming months (or weeks) to stir CSM up. Trade with care ....

 

This came from an article from Billywows senior :

Semiconductor companies, because of the huge expense of building and maintaining chip-fabrication facilities, also suffer from this disadvantage. Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing (Nasdaq: CHRT) for example, has found profits and free cash flow hard to come by while spending the majority of its revenue over the past few years on capital expenditures.

 

Can Chartered erase it $1 billion loss by third quarter 2007?

 

My crystal ball says CSM will be top performer in 2007....still targetting $5 by 3rd quarter 2007. :) :) :) Chartered to regain third place in IC Insights foundry rankings

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Friday, 04 August 2006

Although TSMC continues to dominate the pure-play foundry business with 50 percent market share and revenues expected to top $10 billion in 2006, IC Insights is projecting that Chartered Semiconductor will regain third place in the Top 10 rankings for 2006, displacing SMIC. Chartered's renewed success is due in the main to its ability to ramp Fab 7, its 300mm fab in Singapore using an IBM 90nm process and SOI wafers. IC Insights believes Texas Instruments will start using Chartered in 2007, adding to its big named customers such as Microsoft and AMD. The ?Big 4' (TSMC, UMC, Chartered & SMIC) continued to control a significant potion of the foundry market. IC Insights calculates that is 84 percent of the total worldwide pure-play foundry market.

 

Here's a comparison of TSMC, UMC and CSM.



TSMC reported 2Q06 sales rose 5.5% qoq. This is in line with UMC's 5.6%, but better than CSM's 3.3%.



TSMC's gross profit rose 12% qoq and GP margin is 52%. This compares to UMC's 59% qoq growth and GP margin of 20.1%. CSM fared the worst with gross profit declining 5% and GP margin of 26%.



Looking ahead into 3Q06, UMC expects sales to be up 2-5% which is better than TSMC and CSM's expectation of flat to down 3%.



TSMC's computer exposure is 30%, communication 44%, consumer is 20%, vs UMC's 14%, 56%, 28% and CSM's 25%, 34% and 39%. UMC's better growth expectations could reflect its lower exposure to PC sector. The PC sector is currently undergoing undergoing inventory adjustment and is the worst performing sector.



TSMC's sales exposure to 90nm is 24%, 130nm is 25% while UMC is 16% and 22% and CSM is 22% and 28%. TSMC and CSM's higher sales exposure to advanced chips reflect their better gross margins vs UMC.



Shares of CSM outperformed TSMC and UMC in the past. With the recent plunge, the prices are now moving in line with one another.

 

Another good news for AMD ..... :))

AMD nabs 25 percent of server market

 

Another piece of latest good news for CSM .... :)

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IBM Puts AMD Inside

By Alexei Oreskovic
TheStreet.com Staff Reporter
1/8/2006 8:08 AM EDT


IBM (IBM - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD - commentary - Cramer's Take) are set to team up in an alliance designed to boost both companies' share of the lucrative market for corporate servers.

According to news reports, IBM is expected to unveil mainstream servers based on AMD processors at an event in New York on Tuesday.

A representative from IBM would not comment on the reports first published earlier this month by News.com. A representative from AMD was not immediately available for comment.

The move would further AMD's penetration into the server sector, where it has enjoyed its greatest commercial success, and represent another milestone in the Sunnyvale, Calif., chipmaker's battle with Intel (INTC - commentary - Cramer's Take).

IBM and AMD already have various partnerships in place involving semiconductor research and development and manufacturing. But IBM currently uses AMD processors in only a small percentage of its servers, opting for chips by Intel, as well as its own Power processor, in the vast majority of its systems.

By contrast, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Sun Microsystems (SUNW - commentary - Cramer's Take) offer AMD processors in a wide range of their server products.

And in May, Dell (DELL - commentary - Cramer's Take) announced that it would use AMD chips in its class of high-end servers that feature four processors under the hood. The news was a blow to Intel, as Dell has been one of Intel's most loyal customers, selling exclusively Intel-based systems until that point.

Dell's move, as with IBM's expected announcement, are particularly significant as they come as Intel rolls out its newest server processor. The Xeon 5100 features a new microarchitecture that Intel says erases the performance and energy-efficiency advantage that AMD's Opteron chip has enjoyed for the past year or so.

Gordon Haff, an analyst at industry research firm Illuminata, says the Xeon 5100 does indeed put Intel's server processors on more-or-less equal footing with AMD. But during the time Intel was catching up, the server market changed.

 

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Intel Corp. further slashed prices for its personal-computer chips Thursday, a move aimed at clearing out excess inventory as the company marked the launch of new microprocessors for desktop and laptop computers.

The world's largest chipmaker cut PC chip prices by up to 61% from last month's list prices in its bid to reclaim market share lost to smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. last year. The cuts applied to several processor families.

The fresh price reductions -- expected by computer makers and industry analysts -- coincided with Intel's unveiling of its new Core 2 Duo microprocessors, a brand-new architecture that the company's betting will revive sagging sales.

"Not since Intel introduced the Pentium processor has the industry seen the heart of the computer reinvented like this," Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini proclaimed.

The chips feature two processing engines, or brains, on a single chip. Known as dual-core technology, which Intel introduced more than a year ago, the chips are designed to be more powerful and energy-efficient than previous models. The chips consume 40% less power, Intel said.

The Core 2 Duo consists of five desktop processors and five laptop processors. Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel is expected to unleash a big advertising campaign for the chips.

In terms of markdowns, Intel's Pentium D desktop processor prices were reduced by 18% to 40% for some chips. The price for the most expensive Pentium D was slashed to $316 from $530. The Pentium D line, which uses dual-core technology, was introduced in the spring of 2005.

Prices for Intel's older Pentium 4 processor family were chopped by 25% to 61% in some instances, or as low as $74. The company's low-end desktop Celeron D processors were marked down by 8% to 19%, or as low as $34.

Prices are based on 1,000-unit orders, according to a price sheet on Intel's Website.

On Monday, AMD, which is trying to withstand Intel's renewed attack, also cut prices for some of its desktop and laptop chips by up to 57%.

"Regardless of what the competition may do, we price our products according to the value they represent to our customers," spokeswoman Suzy Pruitt said in an e-mail.

Intel is coming off one of its worst business periods since 2004. For the three months ended July 1, Intel reported net income fell 57% to $885 million as sales fell 13% to $8 billion, reflecting lower average selling prices for its chips as well as weaker demand.

It was the chip giant's lowest sales and profit figures since 2004 and comes amid a company-wide restructuring aimed at refocusing Intel solely on PC and server chips.

In trading Thursday, Intel's shares closed at $17.47, down 3 cents. AMD shares closed at $18.06, down 19 cents. Intel shares are trading around three-year lows, while AMD shares are trading around their lowest level in a year.

Matt Andrejczak is a reporter for MarketWatch in San Francisco.