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

To: etchmeister who wrote (16572)	11/16/2005 8:20:31 AM
From: matt dillabough	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25522

Stanford Group downgrades Guidant (GDT 62.50) to Hold from Buy, as they believe the offer price from JNJ will be the final price and that there will not be any additional offers nor further problems... CIBC initiates Applied Materials (AMAT 17.74) with a Sector Perform and $15 tgt, as the co is adapting quickly to slower growth by offsetting more muted fundamentals with continuous cost cutting and share buybacks, driving EPS leverage... CIBC initiates Mattson Technology (MTSN 8.82) with an Outperform and $10 tgt, as they believe the co's margin expansion story in 2006 bucks the trend of decelerating expansion in capex intensity and equipment revenue growth/earnings leverage converging with the chipmakers... CIBC initiates KLA-Tencor (KLAC 50.70) with a Sector Perform and $45 tgt, as they believe its product pipeline is an impressive A.S.P. arsenal, yet the co is not the best hedge in a downturn and the group's forward P/E vs INTC/S&P is likely peaking at a 40% premium... CIBC initiates Lam Research (LRCX 37.83) with a Sector Perform and $35 tgt, as the co's strategic initiative in single-wafer clean tools brings into question the sustainability of near-perfect margins... CIBC initiates Teradyne (TER 14.68) with a Sector Perform and $16 tgt, as the co's restructuring story in 2006 bucks the group trend of slowing expansion in industry capex intensity... CIBC initiates Novellus Systems (NVLS 23.12) with an Underperform and $18 tgt, as they believe the co needs fixes to its cost structure to catch up to peers.

To: etchmeister who wrote (16572)	11/16/2005 8:40:14 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 25522

ProMOS to ramp second 300-mm fab Mark LaPedus EE Times (11/15/2005 5:13 PM EST) SAN JOSE, Calif. — Taiwan’s ProMOS Technologies Inc. on Tuesday (Nov. 15) held an inauguration ceremony for its second 300-mm fab. The company also said that a third 300-mm plant is on the drawing board. ProMOS, a supplier of DRAMs, held the ceremony for its 300-mm Fab 3 plant in the Central Science Park in Taichung. The company’s first 300-mm fab is located in Hsinchu. “The newly inaugurated 300-mm fab is Taiwan’s first 300-mm DRAM fab to deploy 90-nanometer technology in mass production of 512-Mbits DDR1 and DDR2,” said M. L. Chen, chairman and president of ProMOS, in a statement. “After achieving impressive yield results in July and August, we have decided to accelerate start-up schedule such that the production level will reach 30,000 wafers per month by Q3, 2006 and that in turn will allow ProMOS to achieve a bit-growth rate of 80 percent in 2006,” he said. The fab is expected to be upgraded to 70-nm technology in the fourth quarter of 2006. “The significance of 700nm manufacturing is not just in low cost and higher bit-growth, it will also anchor ProMOS in a much stronger position for R&D activities for 60-nm technology and beyond,” he said. Construction of a third 300-mm fab is on the same site. It is slated to begin mass production in 2007. Fab 4 will have a monthly capacity of 40,000 wafers and will employ 60-nm technology.

To: etchmeister who wrote (16572)	11/16/2005 4:22:18 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 25522

Gartner sees slowing IC growth engines EE Times (11/16/2005 2:29 PM EST) SAN JOSE, Calif. — Soaring oil prices and devastating natural disasters had no noticeable effect on the semiconductor market this year, but the engines for IC growth appear to be slowing down, according to the latest forecast from Gartner Inc. Worldwide semiconductor revenue is forecast to reach $235 billion in 2005, a 6.9 percent increase from 2004 revenue. In 2006, the market is forecast to grow 7.6 percent, before a mild slowdown in 2007 with growth of 5.1 percent, according to Gartner (Stamford, Conn.). The forecast is slightly different than that from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), which released its new outlook on Wednesday (see Oct. 16 story). "Semiconductor vendors remain conservative in their investment plans, which is enabling a continued gradual decline in supply-chain inventory levels and incremental improvement in manufacturing capacity utilization rates," said Richard Gordon, an analyst with Gartner (Stamford, Conn.), in a statement. “Despite stellar growth in digital audio players and, by extension, NAND flash memory in the short term, there is somewhat of a void in semiconductor demand to be filled as the PC and digital cellular handset markets enter maturity,” according to Gartner. “These two critical semiconductor applications, while benefiting from technology migration, are approaching saturation in terms of overall growth rates in system unit production and are, therefore, losing their ability to fuel strong growth in the semiconductor market,” according to the firm.

To: etchmeister who wrote (16572)	11/16/2005 5:24:22 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25522

Applied Materials sees Q1 EPS of 14-15 cents Wed Nov 16, 2005 05:11 PM ET SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Applied Materials Inc. (AMAT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) expects profits of 14 to 15 cents per share in the first quarter of fiscal 2006, Chief Financial Officer Nancy Handel said on Wednesday. Revenues for the quarter ending Jan. 31 would rise 3 percent to 5 percent from the fourth quarter, when revenues were $1.72 billion, Handel said. New orders would rise 7 percent to 10 percent from the fourth quarter, when they were $1.69 billion.