Egos, Big Bank Accounts Keep Comm-Chip Makers Single

After two years of abysmal business in techland, some pockets of the industry still defy basic supply-and-demand logic. As long as that's the case, recovery is bound to be elusive.

Case in point: chipmakers that sell to communications-equipment outfits, arguably the most distorted and overbuilt market of the late 90s. As demand for equipment has shriveled, the pain has reverberated down to the chipmakers that supply the likes of Cisco(CSCO Quote), Nortel(NT Quote) and Lucent(LU Quote). But there's been no shake-out yet among silicon vendors, and therein lies the problem. ...