News Article
US DRAM Company Micron Technology Held Its First Ever European Summit In
US DRAM company Micron Technology held its first ever European summit in
London, UK, on July 10.
Steve Appleton - chairman, CEO and president - pointed with pride to
Micron's US patent record in 2001, coming second only to IBM. In effect,
this makes Micron the No.1 in semiconductor patents, he argued, since many
of IBM's patents are not IC related. [The US Patent and Trademark Office
puts Micron (1643) at No.4 internationally, after IBM (3411), NEC (1953) and
Canon (1877). So, Micron is the No.2 company from the UNITED STATES. The
No.1 ranking for a semiconductor company still stands. Bulletin 415, January
14, 2002.]
Appleton was also pleased with his company's recent acquisition from IBM of
a facility in Virginia, USA. Ten years before, Appleton had investigated the
possibility of buying a smaller facility at the site and was asked to pay
$300m - a deal he rejected then. In the intervening period, IBM entered into
a joint venture with Toshiba, spending an estimated $2.5bn on a new plant on
the site. The original fab was converted into office space. The asking price
for the whole site that Micron accepted? $300m.
On 300mm, Appleton preferred to wait until others had sorted out the
problems and created the economic necessity. A better route to improved
productivity, at the moment, is process shrinkage.
Financially, he reports a debt to equity ratio of 6.6%, claimed as the
lowest in the industry. He also believes Micron's production costs are also
the lowest. The company has $145m in liquid investments and a further $145m
in marketable long-term investments.
Sales vice-president Mike Sadler indicated a future strategy aimed at
product diversification - understandable given the turmoil in DRAM pricing.
The company is particularly looking for an expected expansion in memory use
for mobile phones from broadband adoption. Geographically, Micron has
reduced its US share of total sales from 1995's 71% to today's 47%.
The company's search to broaden its markets is indicated in its business
units - Computing and Consumer; Networking and Communications; and Imaging.
Terry Lee - executive director of Advanced Technology and Strategic
Marketing - reported on how increased data rates need more engineering of
signalling and more emphasis on physical design. In particular, RF and
analogue expertise are needed increasingly. Micron is working to meet the
needs of a segmented memory market with an emphasis on JEDEC standards
rather than "boutique" products based on proprietary technologies (Rambus,
for example).
DDR II, operating at 533Mbit/sec data rates, is an example of the need for
signal integrity. Here, Micron has developed "on-die termination", designed
to stop signals being reflected back and forth on a chip and creating noise.
The aim is to replace off-chip techniques that take up board space. At lower
speeds, termination is not necessary.
Another way to go with memory is low power for mobile battery fed devices.
For these applications, high density packaging is also an advantage.
Jan Du Preez, vice-president of Networking & Communications - reported on
Micron's efforts to meet the specialised needs of the networking market.
These include: Reduced Latency DRAM (RLDRAM) licensed from Infineon
Technologies; Ternary Content Addressable Memories that use a third logic
state on top of "0" and "1" to represent "don't care"; CellularRAM developed
with Infineon for low-power DRAM that gives a pseudoSRAM performance; and
the SynchFlash non-volatile memory that has a fully compatible performance
to 143MHz SDRAM. SynchFlash is sampling now with widespread use expected for
the autumn or year-end. Applications could include speeding up boot-up,
replacing ROM and hard disk operating system loading techniques.
Bob Grove, vice-president of Imaging, displayed some of the products
inherited and developed from Micron's acquisition of Photobit in December
2001. CMOS image sensing (CIS) shares many of the characteristics of memory,
hence the fit with Micron's other activities. The company believes that
mobile phones will lead the conversion from CCD to CIS technology.
a facility in Virginia, USA. Ten years before, Appleton had investigated the
possibility of buying a smaller facility at the site and was asked to pay
$300m - a deal he rejected then. In the intervening period, IBM entered into
a joint venture with Toshiba, spending an estimated $2.5bn on a new plant on
the site. The original fab was converted into office space. The asking price
for the whole site that Micron accepted? $300m.
On 300mm, Appleton preferred to wait until others had sorted out the
problems and created the economic necessity. A better route to improved
productivity, at the moment, is process shrinkage.
Financially, he reports a debt to equity ratio of 6.6%, claimed as the
lowest in the industry. He also believes Micron's production costs are also
the lowest. The company has $145m in liquid investments and a further $145m
in marketable long-term investments.
Sales vice-president Mike Sadler indicated a future strategy aimed at
product diversification - understandable given the turmoil in DRAM pricing.
The company is particularly looking for an expected expansion in memory use
for mobile phones from broadband adoption. Geographically, Micron has
reduced its US share of total sales from 1995's 71% to today's 47%.
The company's search to broaden its markets is indicated in its business
units - Computing and Consumer; Networking and Communications; and Imaging.
Terry Lee - executive director of Advanced Technology and Strategic
Marketing - reported on how increased data rates need more engineering of
signalling and more emphasis on physical design. In particular, RF and
analogue expertise are needed increasingly. Micron is working to meet the
needs of a segmented memory market with an emphasis on JEDEC standards
rather than "boutique" products based on proprietary technologies (Rambus,
for example).
DDR II, operating at 533Mbit/sec data rates, is an example of the need for
signal integrity. Here, Micron has developed "on-die termination", designed
to stop signals being reflected back and forth on a chip and creating noise.
The aim is to replace off-chip techniques that take up board space. At lower
speeds, termination is not necessary.
Another way to go with memory is low power for mobile battery fed devices.
For these applications, high density packaging is also an advantage.
Jan Du Preez, vice-president of Networking & Communications - reported on
Micron's efforts to meet the specialised needs of the networking market.
These include: Reduced Latency DRAM (RLDRAM) licensed from Infineon
Technologies; Ternary Content Addressable Memories that use a third logic
state on top of "0" and "1" to represent "don't care"; CellularRAM developed
with Infineon for low-power DRAM that gives a pseudoSRAM performance; and
the SynchFlash non-volatile memory that has a fully compatible performance
to 143MHz SDRAM. SynchFlash is sampling now with widespread use expected for
the autumn or year-end. Applications could include speeding up boot-up,
replacing ROM and hard disk operating system loading techniques.
Bob Grove, vice-president of Imaging, displayed some of the products
inherited and developed from Micron's acquisition of Photobit in December
2001. CMOS image sensing (CIS) shares many of the characteristics of memory,
hence the fit with Micron's other activities. The company believes that
mobile phones will lead the conversion from CCD to CIS technology.
