MICROELECTRONICS NEWSLETTER
August 21, 1976

ADVANCED MEMORY SYSTEMS/INTERSIL
The merger between Advanced Memory Systems and Intersil will probably take somewhat longer than expected. It appears that the dear will go through. AMS will have to report a [sic] $800,000 loss with respect to the Nortec settlement. Their earnings should continue to be very good.

CUTLER-HAMMER/KASPER INSTRUMENTS
Mr. Johnson, president of Kasper, will feel better because the semiconductor capital equipment goods business is picking up. New facilities are planned, both by major producers as well as in-house facilities. The worldwide market continues to improve.

NITRON
Nitron, with its near-proprietary position in non-volatile memories, has become a supplier to National Semiconductor with this technology. (GI and NCR also have MNOS technology). Commodore is expected to announce an agreement in principal to purchase MOS Technology, Inc. in Valley Forge, Pa. reducing the possibility of any future business for Nitron in this area to zero.

NATIONAL MILITARY
National is continuing to expand its capabilities in the military aerospace market. The military market is becoming more important. Reliability itself has become a more significant factor for success or failure in military, industrial, and consumer products.

MOTOROLA
Motorola is "digesting" the impact of hiring its new IC head, AI Stein. Internal rumblings are beginning to appear. There will probably be quite a few people coming and quite a few going as a result of Mr. Stein's initial discussions.

HEWLETT-PACKARD
It's hard to conceive how Hewlett-Packard could possibly lose money in the calculator business, unless you take a broad view of their new R&D programs and how they are written off.

ICE/GIDEP
ICE views the Government Industry Data Exchange Program as one of the few things the government does which has a possible taxpayer benefit. This group makes an honest effort at spreading information on new failure modes around. They identify a specific manufacturer's failure modes. The GIDEP reports are in gruesome detail and mailed to all participants of the program. ICE has had a member on the GIDEP committee for several years.

MONOLITHIC MEMORIES
It's hard for a small semiconductor activity without a proprietary product to survive in direct competition with the majors. Small companies have to have something going for them in order to continue to exist.

NORTEC VS ADVANCED MEMORY SYSTEMS
Litigations of this type will tend to make companies a bit much more cautious on the contracts they write, and even more importantly, cautious on properly executing agreements once made.

VARIAN ASSOCIATES - MOLECULAR-BEAM EPITAXIAL GROWTH
There still is an opportunity for a company who can master these thin films. The most advanced film material is single-crystal carbon, which because of its high bandgap has the possibility of making interesting semiconductor devices if the technology can be mastered.

MUSIC
The leading musical instrument applying IC's is Allen Organ's digital computer- controlled organ. The Allen organ has the logic capability of a medium-sized computer. It certainly represents the state of the art in synthesizing musical sounds.

MOTOROLA VS T.I. IN THE MARKET
Market analysts and investors continue to probe "what's going to happen with Motorola"? Probably the best answer is, no one knows for sure. It will take some months before the presence of Al Stein becomes felt and the results of a major shakeout at Motorola become apparent. T.I., on the other hand, has apparently put it together better than expected in the areas of4K RAMS and high-speed current mode logic. T.I.'s success in 12L has yet to be demonstrated.