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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (42526)	2/22/2001 4:27:39 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 70976

Hitachi to spinout lagging chip-equipment and other groups into new company Semiconductor Business News (02/22/01 12:43 p.m. PST) TOKYO -- In an apparent move to jumpstart its capital-equipment businesses, Japan's Hitachi Ltd. here today (Feb. 22) announced that it will consolidate and spinout its semiconductor tool, instrument, and trading groups into a new company. The new Tokyo-based company, called Hitachi Advanced Technologies Ltd., will form the basis of a new capital-equipment powerhouse, with some 8,060 employees worldwide and sales of around $10.8 billion in fiscal 2002. Hitachi Advanced Technologies will combine of three large--and former independent--entities: Hitachi's Instruments Group, a supplier of instruments; Hitachi's Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment Group, a maker of chip-equipment gear; and Nissei Sangyo Co. Ltd., Hitachi's trading arm. The new company will responsible for the manufacturing, marketing, and sales of its semiconductor equipment, instrument, and other lines. It will also take over sales of Hitachi's medical clinical testing systems. The new company-to become operational by October--will be run by Noriaki Higuchi, president of Nissei Sangyo. Higuchi will have a similar title with Hitachi Advanced Technologies. Hitachi is forming the new company in order to accelerate the development of its chip-making and other equipment into the market, according to a spokesman for the U.S. subsidiary, Hitachi America Ltd. USA, in Brisbane, Calif. It will also enable the company's management to respond to market changes more rapidly, the spokesman added. The move is also designed to re-ignite its lagging chip-equipment business. In total, Hitachi's chip-equipment business, which has 380 employees, had sales of $319.8 million last year. The company makes a number of products, including etchers, electron-beam lithography systems, scanning electron microscopes, and others. But the company's chip-equipment business fell from the top ten rankings in terms of sales in 2000, according to VLSI Research Inc. of San Jose. In fact, Japan's Dainippon Screen Manufacturing Co. Ltd.---a supplier of photomask processing systems, cleaning tools, ovens, etchers, and other equipment--pushed past Hitachi as the world's 10th largest semiconductor equipment supplier in 2000, according to VLSI Research (see Feb. 20 story ). Subject 50522