10 semiconductor firms that are in trouble

EE Times has published a list of 10 semiconductor firms that are in trouble. It includes AMD, all automatic test equipment (ATE) vendors, Cadence, Chartered, Freescale, Infineon, Magma, Renesas, SMIC, and Taiwanese DRAM makers. There are also honorable mentions for ASAT, ASMC, Asyst, Axcelis, Electroglas, Elpida, Hynix, Lam, Mattson, Micron, MIPS, Novellus, NXP, Photronics, Qimonda, Spansion, Sony and UMC.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. AMD is now a fabless company and it remains to be seen if that model will work for the processor vendor. It's also unclear if it can stop the bleeding and keep up with Intel. What happened in Q1?

(tie) Automatic test equipment (ATE) industry All vendors are in bad shape. Advantest, Credence/LTX, Teradyne, Verigy and others are losing vast sums of money. How long can the pain last? Look for more consolidation.