"This may not be the best time to get into the market, but you can never time the market with absolute precision. I think we have judged the market well," said Winbond vice president C.C. Chang in a telephone interview with Reuters.

Winbond, maker of a range of computer components since 1987, began producing its first batches of dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, only in July of 1998.

DRAM, the computer component that helps keep memory-hungry software programmes running, has been a tricky market to judge but worth the risk for some in light of potential turnover when the market peaks, executives of semiconductor firms say.

The last time the market peaked was in 1995, and some local companies saw their margins rise up to 60 per cent. Since then, as oversupply and dramatic drops in pricing have set in,margins have sunk to 18 per cent or even negative positions in some cases, the executives say.

Chang said Winbond did not suffer from this disadvantage because it had just entered the market.

"We may have some challenges but they are not as big as other companies' because we still have a lot of cash in hand," Chang said, without elaborating.

With cash, the company plans to keep pushing forward its technology -- an important facet of the DRAM business -- and expanding production output.

By the end of the year 2000, Winbond expects to have two factories on line and produce 30,000 wafers of DRAM a month.

The company's technological agreement with Japanese DRAM maker and electronics giant Toshiba Corp was an added advantage it had over other players in the market, analysts said.

The relationship was like a safety cushion for the company, said Donald Floyd, semiconductor analyst at ING Barings.

"They have almost no technological risk," Floyd said.

In an agreement with Toshiba, Winbond is givenstate-of-the-art technology, which allows the company to increase output, in exchange for two-thirds of the semi-finished DRAM it makes.

Some analysts point out that the relationship with Toshiba restricts Winbond's production output capacity. But Chang said that he was still comfortable with the agreement even though it was a double-edged sword.

While the agreement ate into output capacity, it provided the emerging company with a reliable channel of demand, Chang said.

He admits the company, like its competitors, is still struggling under pressure from the regional economic crisis.

"The financial crisis makes company executives believe that holding cash is more important than anything else," Chang said.

The crisis has already slowed some expansion.

"Due to the recent capital market turmoil, we have tentatively decided to delay our capacity build up plan by half a year," Chang said.

Instead of being on line with 30,000 wafers of DRAM a month by June 2000, the company would not be fully on lineuntil the end of 2000, he said.

Even so, Chang said he was still pushing to speed up the company's move into the DRAM market as he expected the market would even out by the end of next year.