Thursday April 6, 5:36 am Eastern Time
INTERVIEW-Chip making equipment orders grow further
LONDON, April 6 (Reuters) - Rampant demand for semiconductor manufacturing equipment has grown further in the last two
months, the head of the industry's largest company said on Thursday.
James Morgan, chairman and chief executive of Applied Materials Inc. (NasdaqNM:AMAT - news), told Reuters that the
backlog of orders in the industry was increasing.
``Customers didn't really invest for the last three years, so now they're just starting to invest,' he said in an interview in London.
The Californian company was on target to meet its forecast of second quarter revenues of $2 billion and earnings per share of 50-54 cents.
But the installation of a company-wide information system in January and February had affected its ability to ramp up shipments, he said.
Industry demand had grown since trade group Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International reported January orders rose to their highest level in almost five
years, Morgan said. ``The backlog's building.'
The company was at the same time gaining share in almost all its markets, partly because investments in Asia were generating business in Taiwan.
``Taiwan is clearly the strongest because there's been a huge shift to the foundry concept,' he said.
Morgan predicted ``decades of huge growth' for the industry as use of microchips spread far beyond computers.
``There's just a huge diversification of chip applications that even amazes me. You look at what's happening in the wireless area, the number of applications that that's
going to require of chips.' |
