Word: chips
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...technology age and run everything from watches to supercomputers, are playing the role of the Grinch. They will shut their doors for up to three weeks next month, a time when workers normally expect year-end bonuses and office celebrations. The painful closings are only the latest steps that chip producers are taking to cope with a slump that has crippled the once booming high-tech industry. "There's no end in sight," says Richard Billy, an analyst with the Gartner Group, a computer-research firm. "The bloodbath will continue...
...downturn already rivals the depressions that have struck car-and steelmakers in recent years. Some 64,000 semiconductor employees have been laid off in the past ten months, a toll that equals 19% of the industry's U.S. work force. The top five chip producers, including Intel, Motorola and Advanced Micro Devices, lost a total of $195 million in the quarter ending in September, and the red ink keeps flowing...
...grow at the euphoric rate that experts predicted. Instead of doubling, personal-computer sales will do well to rise by 30% in 1985. That slower than anticipated growth, combined with weak demand for other types of computers, has contributed to a sharp drop in semiconductor prices. Result: worldwide chip revenues have fallen from $26 billion in 1984 to an estimated $21.6 billion this year...
...While chip sales were sinking, U.S. firms continued to lose ground to the Japanese. Rather than cutting back production, such companies as Hitachi and Toshiba persisted in selling at falling prices to boost their market share. "The Japanese don't throw in the towel on the downturns," says Lane Mason, an analyst for Dataquest, which studies electronics firms. "They are willing to suffer a little more red ink in the short term to achieve their long-term goals...
...Japanese strategy has been paying dividends. Since 1983 Japanese companies have raised their share of the American semiconductor market from 13% to an estimated 15%. Their biggest gains, though, have been overseas. While the U.S. portion of worldwide chip sales fell from 61% to 51% between 1980 and 1984, the Japanese share climbed from 26% to 40%. When it comes to memory components, which store computer programs and data, the Japanese have taken a commanding lead. They now provide six out of ten 64K memory chips, the basic devices that hold more than 65,000 pieces of information...