Word: chipping
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...industries have more self-destructive tendencies than the computer memory chip business. When semiconductor prices are high, manufacturers rush headlong into massive investments in new factories, leaving them vulnerable to supply gluts and economic slowdowns. Yet like mosquitoes to one of those electric zappers, chipmakers make the same mistake again and again, creating a binge-and-purge business pattern that occurs with sickening regularity. Of the top 10 largest manufacturers of dynamic random access memory chips, or DRAMs, in 1990, only one - Samsung Electronics of South Korea - remains on that list today...
...These days, the DRAM business has entered into another destructive phase of the business cycle. Huge investments in new capacity in 2007 have created an oversupply of chips, while the global economic slowdown is drastically weakening demand for the slivers of silicon that go into computers, mobile phones, portable music players and a host of other consumer electronics products. The result has been plummeting prices. According to a price index compiled by research firm iSuppli, DRAM prices have plunged 48% in the past six months. That is good news for consumers - cheaper DRAMs mean electronics makers can pack more memory...
...DRAM makers won't significantly ease up anytime soon. Though prices may stabilize in the short term, iSuppli's Kim doesn't expect a meaningful recovery until the second half of 2009. That turnaround will likely be driven by a sharp reduction in new capacity. Kim expects investment in chip-making facilities to fall 63% in 2009 as cash-strapped manufacturers finally scale back. Until then, however, DRAM makers will be lucky to survive - at least until the next downturn...
...Wednesday, as Obama signed into law an expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, he vowed that his push for health reform would move forward. "The way I see it, providing coverage to 11 million children through CHIP is just a down payment on my commitment to cover every single American," the President said. But with Daschle's departure, it is far less clear when - or even how-he will pay off the rest...
...four hours and six rounds of voting, the Republican National Committee elected former Lt. Governor Michael Steele as its first-ever African American chairman. Evidently, Steele's rivals had failed to convince the 168-member committee that they could adapt to a post-racial, web-driven political era. Take Chip Saltsman, Mike Huckabee's ex-presidential campaign manager and an early candidate for the RNC seat who dropped out of the race after word spread that he had distributed a song called "Barack the Magic Negro" a few weeks after Obama's victory. The incumbent, Mike Duncan, was forced...