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

To: herenow_2 who wrote (43461)	3/11/2001 10:38:31 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Fab Equipment Suppliers Refuse To Be Gloomy About Chip Market Electronics Weekly Mar 07, 2001 --- The semiconductor production equipment industry is countering the gloom on business prospects for the chip industry. Industry delegates attending Semiconductor Equipment Materials International’s (SEMI) annual ISS conference in Antwerp, Belgium, this week were very much more upbeat about the state of their industry than the professional forecasters. Several delegates said device manufacturers were asking for delayed deliveries of production equipment but were not, as in previous downturns, canceling orders outright. Doug Dunn, chief executive officer of ASML, the Dutch manufacturers of lithographic equipment, said he was sticking with his forecast from last year of selling between 400 and 440 stepper/scanners in 2001, although conceding that his expectation is now nearer 400 than 440. A couple of wafer manufacturers said they expected the fourth quarter to be accompanied by allocation for the new 300mm wafer because supplies are so short. But market watcher Malcolm Penn, chairman of Future Horizons, in a gloomy presentation, forecast that IC unit shipments would grow only 8 percent this year. He was immediately contradicted by Beth Schumann, director of industry research and statistics at San Jose-based SEMI, who estimated unit volume being up 14 percent. Schumann reckoned that spending on wafer fab materials would be up from $16 billion last year to $18 billion this year and that the spending on wafers would be up from $7.5 billion last year to $8.15 billion this year.