Taiwan tech operations are paralyzed

Nationwide power outage shuts off manufacturing

BY CECILIA KANG AND TOM QUINLAN Mercury News Staff Writers

[snip]

The devastating earthquake that struck Taiwan early Tuesday has cut power to the high-technology manufacturing base at Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park, paralyzing operations at some of the world's largest chip production foundries and high-tech component makers.

With Taiwan still reeling from the heavy human toll the earthquake inflicted on the country -- with more than 1,700 dead and upwards of 100,000 homeless -- most U.S. companies have focused on locating employees based in Taiwan and making sure they were safe.

But with that task nearly complete, high-tech companies are starting to assess what impact the earthquake will have on their supply of semiconductors, components and finished products. Taiwan is a major source of the world's motherboards for personal computers, networking cards and an array of high-tech goods including cellular phones, and desktop and portable computers.

[end snip]

"To see what is in front of one's nose requires a constant struggle."
-- George Orwell

Brian

-- Brian E. Smith (besmith@mail.arc.nasa.gov), September 22, 1999

Answers

* * * 19990922 Wednesday

Paraphrasing from interview with ( female ) Deutsch (sp?) Bank Chip Market Analyst this morning (~9am) on CNBCfn:

* Earthquakes shake up loose and otherwise settled dust in the chip "clean room" assembly lines; must be "cleaned" up.

* It could take from 2-4 weeks--_AFTER POWER IS RESTORED_--for the chip equipment to be recalibrated to production tolerances!!

It sounds like they're out of business in Taiwan until mid to late October!

Regards, Bob Mangus

* * *

-- Robert Mangus (rmangus1@yahoo.com), September 22, 1999.

Flood s Spur GM Chrysler Cuts

Some other ripples, these from Floyd.

Jerry

-- Jerry B (skeptic76@erols.com), September 22, 1999.

Well, this whole earthquake thing is going to drive RAM and other semiconductor prices up uh-gain... As if RAM making a run from a $50- 60 price point for 128 MB PC100 to what, $250-ish now, wasn't bad enough. Might mark a return to the fifty-bucks-a-meg period eventually, but by then who'll care?

That aside, I hope everyone over there makes it through as okay as circumstances permit. I've seen my share of natural disasters and the suck-factor is high. Let's keep 'em in our prayers' folks, they're gonna need it...

That guy's posting again... Someone called him...

-- OddOne (mocklamer_1999@yahoo.com), September 22, 1999.