PE> If Siemen's can't compete with a "real" cost of $100 for 16 meg
PE> SIMMS, the Australian Government has NO chance.
BL>  Siemens couldn't compete with the "real" price of $1,000! The Japs
BL> just kept undercutting them, until Matsushita bought them and closed
BL> it down. Thsi is the problem with a new product. In the beginning, you
BL> have to carry the capital costs and it can be 5 years before you turn
BL> to profit. The car industry works like this.

Hi Bob,

Thought you might be interested in this one...

Samsung Electronics is establishing it's *first* US semiconductor
manufacturing facility in Travis County, Austin, Texax.
The US$1.3 billion fab plant is considered the largest single Korean
investment in the US.  Construction is expected to be completed by
the second quarter of 1997, and production should begin during the
fourth quarter of 1997.  Samsung will use the facility to produce
--- Wait for it --- 16- and 64-Mb DRAMs.  The plant will use 0.35-
to 0.3-um technology with 8-inch wafers in a Class 1 cleanroom.

FWIW, the same journal ( Asian Electronics Engineer ) has an advert
from Hyundi who are claiming to have the first single chip MPEG-2
decoder available. You no doubt remember that it was decidedly
impossible to quantify the actual resolution of a video image ?
Well, guess what active resolution this thing puts out ... 720x576
Sounds a little familiar, wot :)

Cheers, Brenton
@EOT:

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