Las Vegas, Nov. 12 -- The mood was cautious among the 40 companies that presented at Deutsche Bank's annual semiconductor conference in Las Vegas over the past two days.

Among a generally subdued mood, most companies view the current soft patch as only a mid-cycle correction resulting from an inventory hiccup. Positive anecdotes came from Xilinx, suggesting that its business in China has improved over the past month, and Micrel, whose POS from distribution in October was flat to up month-on-month.  On the other hand, National Semiconductor and Atmel were cautious (Atmel has not seen a pickup in Q4 orders).

Avnet senior VP and CFO Ray Sadowski fielded several questions after his presentation, mostly on inventory. After seeing inventory increase 12% over the past two quarters (while sales fell 1%), the company plans to reduce inventory over the next several months. Sadowski seemed confident that fundamentals would improve by the March or June quarter.

San Jose, CA -- Electronics manufacturing in China experienced another year of record growth in 2003, exceeding even optimistic expectations, according to a new report from Electronic Trend Publications. While part of the growth is attributable to a bandwagon effort to keep pace with worldwide competitors who manufacture in China or have CM/ODM partners there, the major trend is for companies to lower product cost by leveraging the outsourcing model and gaining access to the enormous, undeveloped local Chinese market.

ETP estimates the cost of goods sold for electronics products manufactured in China was $122 billion in 2002. The market is predicted to grow at a CAGR of 15.4%, reaching $270 billion by 2008. Some of the fastest growing companies over this period should include TCL, Aucma, AsusTek, Jinling, Quanta, Gree and UTStarcom, all of which saw their revenues double from the previous year.

Computing and communications IT equipment will continue to grow, accounting for nearly 68% of China's total electronics production by 2008. However, the market in all industries is expanding for both domestic consumption and export.

The unanswered question is: How long can this growth be sustained without a downturn? ETP suggests that Asian companies tend to compete themselves into an unhealthy market environment from a supply and profit point of view. Yet, as long as fundamental worldwide demand for products remains strong, China is expected to expand its market share of the worldwide assembly market.

Net income dropped, however, to $236,439, from $440,679 last year (when the company gained a tax credit of $213,000.) The company cited pricing pressures and higher charges for freight and raw materials.

Income from operations was $541,576, up from $439,034. Backlogs were up 20% to $14.2 million.

Year to-date sales are uup 24%, to $52.3 million, a company record. Net income was $384,472, down from $788,990, including the one-time credit.

The company guided for fiscal 2004 revenue of $68 million to $71 million, up 20%.

The conference takes place Rosemont, IL Sept. 25 to 29, in Rosemont (Chicago), IL.

The deadline for abstracts is Feb. 7. Abstracts can be submitted by clicking here.

Papers should describe significant results from experiments or emphasize new techniques and contain technical, economic or test data. Material should be original, unpublished and noncommercial.

SMTA provides a $1,000 awards for papers judged best of conference, best of proceedings and best international.