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To: jbershad who wrote (14205)	6/2/1998 1:10:00 PM
From: Andrew Vance	Respond to of 17305

AV--I am sure that the secondary offering had something to do with the generoisty associated with just this mild downgrade. I am still waiting to see the NB Montgomery response related to ATMI. The type of equipment and chemicals ATMI deals with should prove to be one of the first indications of an industry recovery. Ramping up wafer starts is almost an instantaneous process with very little leadtime involved (remeber the 12 week manufacturing window I spoke of) to make their sales, revenues, and earnings numbers regain their previous stellar levels. We will exit this downturn with as much equipment in place as before and the ramp up to previous starts levels will have this same equipment running at higher levels of capacity. This initial ramp up will require chemicals at previous order levels to accomplish this. The end user "catchup" strategy surrounding new equipment orders or equipment upgrades purchased from the semiconductor equipment sector will ultimately build up a great deal of backlog for the ATMI hardware business units (which may have little to no backlog now). We see feast and famine again. Lack of planning surrounding this phenomena (pushouts vs cancellations) will cause a mad rush for the advanced tools once the sector turns on again. If you want to look at ATMI as being "hand to mouth" today, this changes dramatically when the sector turns around. This famine to feast situation can be responded to much quicker by the likes of an ATMI than with a long leadtime capital equipment provider like AMAT, ASMLF, or NVLS. ATMI bears close watch as to be one of the first "alarms" signalling the tech sector recovery. We will see it in their quarterly number well before the equipment suppliers and the IC manufacturers themselves. I think ATMI will have its recovery documented 1 quarter before the IC manufacturers and possibly 2 quarters prior to the equipment suppliers. Andrew