I hope this is a heartening economic sign...

"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Spoke to the local machine shop owner today. People aren't paying on time, even the good customers.

Cheers

Perhaps. OTOH announcements of this type are a standard semiconductor industry marketing/sales ploy to spread FUD and drive customers to place orders asap. BTDT. Art

My wife works for a company related to the chip industry. They have increased their staff by about 3X over the last 4 months. The chip industry is heating up.

Where I work, we have added 2 people and everyone is busy. This is not normal because we are usually late to the party when the economy improves.

The chip industry is not heating up. The chip industry has created artificial shortages by laying off more people and closing more factories than necessary.

Huh? The only one I know of is ON Semi, after buying AMIS, closed FAB9 (in Pocatello), an ancient process.

And the chip business is showing signs of heating up... overseas... but US business is pathetic. ...Jim Thompson

So what's left of the good old AMI Plant? If they bulldozed the only HV fab they had I think ON shot themselves into the foot.

Can't say that. A client will be doing a pretty challenging chip this year, and that's a US company. US-owned as well.

What do you think of LTC? I don't like they P/E much, a bit high at 24 but the fundamentals look pretty good. But that's IMHO only for long term investing.

Naaaah! HV isn't done that way anymore... takes too much chip area.

Take a look, for example, at XFAB XC10xx, XDM10, XH035 and XT06 processes... mixed low and high voltages devices residing on the same chip.

Do they offer foundry services ?:-) ...Jim Thompson

Nah, they could do it. Look here:

Then, quote "Let our system architects introduce you to the world of mixed-signal" while they didn't even bother to answer a lucrative sales lead I had handed them on a silver platter. Pathetic.

Yep, they sure are a good company. AFAICT the only one remaining in the US would be Supertex. In my young buck days we also used Telmos but IIRC they are long gone.

AFAIK they don't, I was just thinking about IRA investments here. They do have some really nice HV products. Expensive, but worth it. Plus nobody can rival the killer advantage they've got: LTSPice. And absolutely stellar application support people.

Fab9 was old-fashioned CAxxxx kind of stuff... stuff that only those that can't stop living in the past want to use.

XFAB has a fab in Lubbock, TX.

...Jim Thompson

Jim Thompson wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

of course;what's made here in the US anymore? I've read Tektronix[now a Danaher subsidiary] is going to be building their scopes in China.

So did I read that right, that the number of plants has dropped and the remaining ones have work orders beyond their capacity?

That stuff can be very useful in some applications.

I know, but isn't it German-owned?

Lots of medical electronics, aerospace, oil/gas gear, industrial electronics. And that's just browsing my own turf, there's lots more.

For example, there ain't nothing whatsoever engineered or produced in any other country that rivals this, and lots of patients sure will be glad it's around (so they will be around for a long time after the cardiology procedure):

I also wouldn't know where the Hittites and Triquints would be in other parts of the world. Or the Intels and AMDs.

That's inevitable. DSOs have become low cost products and there is just too much competition from Asian companies. Some of which, I must say, did a better job in the run-of-the-mills DSO market at times. There's a reason why the latest DSO on my lab bench is not a Tektronix or Agilent.

For what? Spare parts?

Ja !-) ...Jim Thompson

some

No, medical :-)

capacity.

some

that

Why? You have something against better functioning and more power-efficient parts?

Those old, long channel, metal gate parts are crap by today's standards.

If you really need spare parts for outdated equipment, where were you when the last-time-buy was announced? ...Jim Thompson

capacity.

some

five

that

Maybe we are misunderstanding. The CAxxxx parts I've used have no gates :-)

If you meant CDxxxx that's all alive and kicking.

capacity.

of

some

five

that

is

HV

FAB9 was CMOS. OK, I couldn't remember the prefix :-)

Marvelous bipolar can be had with process XB06, along with 0.6u CMOS.

Get modern, Joerg! ...Jim Thompson

capacity.

delays

of

=A0Although some

five

that

have

is

HV

So you think CDxxxx is obsolete technology? Message from young buck to old buck:

A Fairchild sales guy told me the same thing in the mid-90's, that I'd be out of my mind doing a new design with CD-logic and stuff in there. He wanted to sell me on their TinyLogic which was way more expensive, would have required an additional voltage regulator and could not directly drive cheap standard level FETs. CDxxxx would be obsolete within very few years and yada, yada, yada. Afterwards I had a hearty laugh. Long story short this very design is still in full production (in Shenzen). It might still be when I put my teeth in a jar at night.

Do I anticipate a parts shortage? Nope. Why would Digikey have 20,000 stock of the CD4060? What could possibly replace it at same cost?

If you'd know what we've got cooking at one client in terms of chip design you wouldn't say that. Several hundred HV channels, some digital stuff, more than a dozen VGAs, at tens of meggeehoitzes. All on one li'l die.