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To: Lee Penick who wrote (40078)	11/11/1997 11:22:00 PM
From: Paul Engel	Respond to of 186894

Lee - Re: "Paul, I would enjoy hearing your thoughts on AMAT." Great company, great products and tremendous growth potential. Their products (Wafer Fab equipment - CVD and etch equipment + others) form the core of most semiconductor fabs. Despite the negative sentiment that AMAT will be impacted by the S.E. Asian currency crisis, ultimately ALL fabs have to be upgraded to stay competitive. This means moving to finer geometries and/or larger wafers. Thus, there will always be demand for new process equipment, independent of the building of newer fabs and AMAT will get its fair share of orders. One other item should be considered. Many of the S.E. Asian companies have or are building wafer fabs in the U.S. - Samsung (Texas), TSMC (Washington), NEC (Sacramento), Fujitsu (Oregon), Hitachi (Texas?). The effects of a strong dollar can be offset by building in the U.S. assuming these companies have U.S. equivalent currencies to build and/or expand these fabs. And, once 300 MM wafer fabs become viable (1999), EVERY COMPANY will be converting at least some capacity to these wafers - and that means ALL NEW EQUIPMENT fo that conversion! I predict a "land rush" mentality will start to occur in mid to late 1999 as everybody scrambles to get their 300 mm equipment "on order". AMAT - GREAT FUTURE! Paul