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Technology Stocks : Applied Materials No-Politics Thread (AMAT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: etchmeister who wrote (15212)	6/8/2005 8:34:14 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 25522

Applied Materials Leads the Industry in CMP for 7th Year Wednesday June 8, 7:30 am ET SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 8, 2005--Applied Materials, Inc. (Nasdaq: AMAT - News) boosted its market share in CMP (chemical mechanical planarization) to 73% in calendar year 2004, according to Gartner Dataquest's April report(1), retaining its leadership position in the estimated $1.3 billion (2004) CMP market for the seventh straight year. Applied Materials' comprehensive and advanced line of CMP solutions are critical technologies, enabling customers to continuously enhance the performance of their transistors and interconnects. "Our CMP leadership is built on superior process control combined with high productivity, utilizing proprietary, patented breakthroughs in polishing head and endpoint technology," said Dr. Farhad Moghadam, senior vice president and general manager of Applied Materials' Thin Films Group. "Applied's focus on cost-effective, low-downforce CMP technology has contributed significantly to customers' increased use of our CMP systems for all types of leading-edge interconnect structures, including the most advanced copper/low k designs, as well as performance-critical transistor steps like shallow trench isolation and pre-metal dielectric polishing." The Applied Reflexion® LK system is the industry standard for 300mm CMP, providing the technology and productivity advances required by customers for manufacturing 90nm transistor and interconnect structures and fabrication of emerging 65nm designs. With its ability to precisely control polishing pressure in small increments across the wafer, the Reflexion system's Titan Contour head technology has proven its ability to enhance customers' yield and profitability as well as enable their move to next-generation device production. In 2004, Applied released its revolutionary Applied Reflexion® LK Ecmp (electrochemical mechanical planarization) system, which uses electric charge to remove copper with virtually no downforce on the wafer. This new technology enables chipmakers to planarize the most advanced dual damascene structures at high speed with minimal dishing, erosion and defects, improving throughput by up to 25% and reducing operating cost by up to 30% compared to conventional copper polishing systems. The Applied Reflexion® LK Ecmp system was celebrated by IEEE Spectrum Magazine in its January 2005 special issue featuring "5 Big Technology Projects That Make A Difference." Forward-Looking Statements. This press release contains forward looking statements, including those related to Applied Materials' technological leadership, product capabilities, strategic position and opportunities. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements, including but not limited to: the sustainability of demand in the semiconductor and semiconductor equipment industries, which is subject to many factors, including global economic conditions, business spending, consumer confidence, demand for electronic products and semiconductors, and geopolitical uncertainties; the timing, rate, amount and sustainability of capital spending for new technology, such as 300mm and sub-100 nanometer applications; the company's ability to successfully develop, deliver and support a broad range of products and services and expand its markets; and other risks described in Applied Materials' Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K. All forward-looking statements are based on management's estimates, projections and assumptions as of the date hereof and the company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement. Applied Materials, Inc. (Nasdaq: AMAT - News), headquartered in Santa Clara, California, is the largest supplier of equipment and services to the global semiconductor industry. Applied Materials' web site is www.appliedmaterials.com (1) "Wafer Fab Equipment Market Share Reshuffled in Boom of 2004," Dean Freeman, Mark Stromberg, Klaus Rinnen, Bob Johnson, Takashi Ogawa; Gartner Dataquest Report April 1, 2005. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Source: Applied Materials, Inc.

To: etchmeister who wrote (15212)	6/8/2005 12:11:38 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 25522

ST reveals plan to cut 2,300 jobs in Europe Peter Clarke EE Times (06/08/2005 11:03 AM EDT) LONDON — STMicroelectronics NV presented plans to cut 2,300 European jobs by mid-2006 to its European Work Council, on Wednesday (June 8), the company said. This means that Europe is set to bear the largest part of a planned cut of 3,000 jobs outside Asia that ST announced May 16. The company did not indicate exactly where the remaining 700 jobs would be cut, although the U.S is ST's other major geographic area of operation. ST announced the intention to cut its workforce outside Asia after posting poor results for the first quarter of 2005. It said these were partly related to weakness of the dollar. ST has slipped down the top-ten rankings for the first quarter according to market research company iSuppli. The company said it plans to reorganize its European activities by optimizing its wafer test activities on a global scale, by reducing support functions, by rationalizing activities outside manufacturing, and by disengaging from certain activities. ST said the plan would be submitted to works councils in each of the countries involved. European labor laws give works councils a major consultative role with regard job cuts. There has been speculation that ST could combine its memory operations with those of flash memory maker Spansion LLC, which if done in the form of a three-way joint venture between Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Fujitsu Ltd. and ST, could remove a number of jobs from ST's payroll and meet its disengagement plans. In its latest announcement ST said it was committed to minimizing the social impact of its reorganization and would favor voluntary redundancy, early retirement, transitions to part-time working and taking time to implement job reduction. ST said it was committed to remain an "integrated technological and industrial company".

To: etchmeister who wrote (15212)	6/8/2005 9:59:58 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 25522

Xilinx Leaves 1Q Forecast Unchanged Wednesday June 8, 5:21 pm ET Programmable Chip Maker Xilinx Leaves First-Quarter Forecast Unchanged; Shares Fall 3 Percent SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- Xilinx Inc., a maker of programmable chips, on Wednesday left its fiscal first-quarter sales forecast unchanged during its mid-quarter update with analysts and investors. The company said it continues to expect sales in the range of $391 million to $406.6 million, flat to up 4 percent from the fiscal fourth quarter. Xilinx also said it expects gross margin -- a key measure of profitability -- to be unchanged from the previous quarter. On average, analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial expect earnings of 21 cents per share on revenue of $401.5 million. The mid-quarter update comes after chip maker Texas Instruments Inc. provided bullish expectations for the current period, and one day before Intel Corp. is expected to do the same. Shares of semiconductor stocks were among the strongest performers among technology issues in trading during the regular session. Shares of Xilinx fell 88 cents, or 3.1 percent, to $27.20 in electronic trading after closing up 25 cents at $28.08 on the Nasdaq.

To: etchmeister who wrote (15212)	6/14/2005 8:54:56 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 25522

Samsung exec predicts memory shortages George Leopold EE Times (06/14/2005 4:25 PM EDT) ANAHEIM, Calif. — Surging demand for flash memory driven by multimedia consumer devices could lead to future memory shortages, a Samsung Semiconductor executive warned Tuesday (June 14). Jon Kang, senior vice president of technology marketing for Samsung's chip unit, told the Design Automation Conference (DAC) here that memory demand is surging as more memory-hungry multimedia applications are integrated into cellphones — especially 3G phones. Kang predicted that memory used in multimedia mobile phones will equal PCs by 2007. Digital content and new applications like digital cameras, recorders, MP3 players, television and even GPS are driving memory demand in cellphones. "I never imagined consumer products using this much memory," Kang said in a DAC speech. The result, he warned, could be "massive oversupply or massive undersupply" as memory vendors attempt to shift between NAND and NOR flash technologies. The failure of memory vendors to make a quick transition from one flash technology to another in emerging consumer devices could lead to shortages just as the flash market explodes, Kang said. "The [memory] market will shift, the market is not stable," the Samsung executive warned, calling the situation a "perfect digital storm." Market researchers such as Semico Research Corp. (Phoenix) are forecasting record revenues for NOR flash approaching $11 billion in 2007, but not before the market contracts this year. The increase in high-density memory used in consumer devices is also fueling an annual doubling of Samsung's flash memory density, Kang said. The chip maker just announced it was ramping production of 70-nm flash memory and is working on a 60-nm version. Further out, it is proposing a "fusion memory" that combines NAND flash, SRAMs, logic and analog circuitry on the same device. The target application is mobile devices. At the same time, the chip maker is pressing ahead with multichip packaging technologies that will allow the incorporation of more memory in consumer devices. It rolled out an 8-chip package in January with 3.2 Gytes of memory. Kang said he expects system-in-package technology will also be needed to integrate CPUs and memory into gadget-filled mobile phones. That's where the EDA industry enters the picture, Kang said. "The chip guys must work with the EDA industry to achieve the time-to-market" goals that are vital to competing in the consumer market.