The financial turbulence of Asia and other market changes have crimped the expected expansion of global chip markets in early 1998,

The worldwide market for semiconductors in 2001 is expected to decline 31 percent due to excessive inventories and price pressure on a wide range of products, ... However, recent data indicates inventory is now largely in balance and prices are rebounding in some product categories.

The reality is that financial markets are self-destabilizing; occasionally they tend toward disequilibrium, not equilibrium.

The financial markets generally are unpredictable. So that one has to have different scenarios... The idea that you can actually predict what's going to happen contradicts my way of looking at the market.

Korea is a significant market for American semiconductor producers -- in 2005, the Korean semiconductor market was approximately $4.5 billion.

Of course, financial markets were up moderately and that helps.