RTEC.......The Wall Street Transcript Publishes Semiconductor
Capital Equipment Report In Robertson Stephens
Tech 2000 Conference Issue
NEW YORK, March 3/PRNewswire/ -- 21 leading analysts and 33 Technology CEOs
examine the Technology sector in the latest issue of The Wall Street Transcript
(212/952-7433) or twst.com .
In a crucial review of this sector for investors and industry professionals, this valuable
174-page Special Issue features:
1) Semiconductor Capital Equipment -- In an in-depth Analyst Interview
(2,700 words) Susan Billat, Managing Director with Robertson Stephens,
discusses the outlook for the Semiconductor Equipment sector and gives
specific stock recommendations.
Billat summarizes the sectors she covers: ``The larger group of companies that I cover is in semiconductor capital equipment,
which fall into two general categories. One is known as the front end. These are the companies, led by the largest capital
equipment company, Applied Materials (Nasdaq: AMAT - news), that make equipment for wafer fabrication -- the ultra clean
rooms you are familiar with seeing.' She then goes on to say: ``The back-end equipment fall into two subsets, one is assembly
and the other is test.' And finally, her last area of expertise: ``The other sector I cover is the foundries.'
Billat states ``many other companies, starting with the largest, Intel (Nasdaq: INTC - news), have a very large capability
in-house (Intel, for instance, is going to spend $5 billion dollars on capital equipment this year), but it still outsources many of its
circuits and is having other companies fabricate and/or assemble and test them.'
``The largest front-end foundry that I cover is TSMC in Taiwan and it primarily does wafer fabrication, Billat declares. 'The
largest back-end assembly and test foundry is Amkor (Nasdaq: AMKR - news), which I also cover.``
Commenting on the lagging photomask sector of last year, she states, ``it was last summer and now we are seeing signs of life.
As a matter of fact, we've upgraded Photronics (Nasdaq: PLAB - news) and Etec (Nasdaq: ETEC - news) recently made
comments that they too were seeing an upturn in demand. So we believe that the turn is right around the corner and we expect,
as we've been saying, to see it probably in Q2, as soon as the holiday effects are over.' She concludes: ``We believe that the
photomask sector is finally catching up with the rest of the industry, and we think that's very good news for the participants in
the sector.'
``One that I'm very fond of is Lam Research (Nasdaq: LRCX - news),' says Billat, giving her opinion of a well positioned firm
in its particular sector. ``They make two different major product lines. One is an etcher and they have a new etcher. Etchers, as
the name implies, selectively remove material. I think they have met with great favor with the new product that has come out,
and they seem to be taking a share.' Adding to her opinion of well positioned firms, Billat states, ``Novellus (Nasdaq: NVLS -
news) would be another example.'
``One company that we like a lot is Advanced Energy (Nasdaq: AEIS - news), a supplier to the suppliers,' Billat asserts.
``They provide power supplies to companies like Applied and Lam and Novellus, as well as providing them to other
industries.' That particular firm is making advances in the DVD market, and Billat concludes that ``as DVD players have
become less expensive and the number of DVD disks being made is going up exponentially, Advanced Energy benefits greatly.
So they are another company we really like.'
Offering more firms that she likes, Billat declares, ``And yet another would be one we recently took public, Rudolph
Technologies (Nasdaq: RTEC - news). They make metrology equipment, measuring equipment that is used for transparent and
opaque films that take advantage of several of the inflection points I have mentioned. For example, Rudolph's tools can
measure copper in a nondestructive way. Everybody else has to use a destructive test.'
``Returning to the back-end, because those are all front-end companies, we like both Teradyne (NYSE: TER - news) and
Credence (Nasdaq: CMOS - news),' Billat states. ``They are both test companies and particularly strong in mix signal and
logic testing. Those would be among our very favorites.'
Finishing her analysis of the sector, Billat asserts: ``The leading foundry is the TSMC and we like them very much. The other
one we really like is Amkor on the back-end. For example, Intel is performing very well and we believe that Amkor provides
foundry packaging services for many Intel parts.' |
