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

To: Gottfried who wrote (62214)	3/21/2002 1:51:06 AM
From: Donald Wennerstrom	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

I have seen several references in the last couple of days to AMAT "holding an analyst conference on Thursday. Also this is confirmed, and additional information provided about the session(s) at AMAT by the following article, just released, from MarketWatch.com. <<SUNNYVALE, Calif. (CBS.MW) -- Applied Materials will unveil Thursday a technology center two years in development that the world's largest chip equipment maker hopes speeds its customers' development of chips. Applied said its new Process Module Technology Center represents an investment of several hundred million dollars and is the largest such facility operated by an equipment supplier. Also on Thursday, Applied (AMAT: news, chart, profile) will host its annual shareholders meeting, as well as an analyst meeting. On Wednesday, Applied's stock closed down $1.57, or 3 percent, to $51. The 166,000-square-foot facility, with 39,000 square feet of clean room space, simulates a chip making environment and can hold more than 300 pieces of equipment. Currently, the center, located in Sunnyvale, Calif., holds about 40 pieces of equipment and incorporates leading-edge and beyond technologies. The chip industry is undergoing a major technology shift that makes smaller, cheaper, faster chips. The latest equipment makes better conducting chips through the use of copper instead of aluminum; it makes more chips per wafer by using 300 mm wafers vs. 200 mm or 100 mm wafers; and it shrinks chip geometries to 150 nanometers and below. "Every time we move to a smaller feature size, we need more and more changes," said Applied President Dan Maydan, adding that this facility will focus on driving geometries to less than 100 nanometers. One of the main aspects of the plant is to facilitate the integration of new equipment into a manufacturing line, which will result in customers fully ramping production quicker. Applied has one other technology development center in Silicon Valley, but that one was built in 1998 and primarily operates on 200 mm wafer equipment.>> This is sounding like a very interesting day tomorrow, Gottfried. I wish I lived close enough so I could go with you to the meeting(s). When it is all done you'll have to report back on how the "free food" tasted.<gg> Don