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

To: Justa Werkenstiff who wrote (27794)	1/20/1999 12:11:00 AM
From: Paul V.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Justa, Thanks for posting the SEMI data. Looks good. Following is the BTB data with your recent post. Paul Naturally, the above is only my opinions and the data which I have reviewed from the SEMI site. Readers are reminded the old saving, "caveat emptor (buyer/reader beware)." PS. Gottfried, will be able to give us the SEMI BTB, Orders, and Shipment chart. YEARS AVER. MNTHY MNTHY MNTHLY MONTH 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 '91-98 STD HGH-DV LW-DEV JAN 1.23 1.09 1.12 1.17 1.32 1.28 1.08 0.94 1.15 0.123 1.277 1.0307 FEB 1.12 1.2 1.15 1.13 1.41 1.36 1.07 0.9 1.17 0.161 1.33 1.006 MAR 0.91 1.13 1.12 1.07 1.3 1.15 1.15 0.82 1.08 0.151 1.232 0.93 APR 0.92 1.02 1.18 1.05 1.23 1 1.1 0.78 1.04 0.143 1.178 0.89 MAY 0.93 0.93 1.2 1.02 1.11 0.87 1.09 0.81 0.995 0.133 1.128 0.86 JUN 0.96 0.9 1.22 1.16 1.18 0.87 1.07 0.74 1.01 0.172 1.184 0.84 JLY 0.93 0.92 1.19 1.2 1.08 0.76 1.12 0.65 0.98 0.202 1.183 0.78 AUG 0.92 0.94 1.14 1.21 1.05 0.71 1.1 0.57 0.955 0.22 1.175 0.73 SEPT 0.94 0.98 1.02 1.03 1.02 0.7 1.09 0.57 0.918 0.186 1.102 0.74 OCT 1.01 1.01 1.03 1.12 1.07 0.78 1.05 0.75 0.977 0.14 1.113 0.84 NOV 0.96 1.03 1.05 1.19 1.06 0.9 1.02 0.84 1.01 0.107 1.11 0.9 DEC 0.98 1.08 1.19 1.29 1.15 1.01 0.99 0.94 1.08 0.122 1.2 0.96 Y AV. 9.84 1.019 1.134 1.137 1.165 0.949 1.078 0.776 1.03 0.154 1.185 0.88 Y SD. 0.096 0.092 0.0685 0.0823 0.1248 0.218 0.43 0.1276 0.75 0.034 0.069 0.97 Y HDV. 1.08 1.111 1.2027 1.219 1.289 1.167 1.12 0.9 1.11 0.19 1.253 0.97 Y LDV. 0.887 0.926 1.0656 1.054 1.04 0.731 1.035 0.65 0.954 0.12 1.115 0.78

To: Justa Werkenstiff who wrote (27794)	1/20/1999 10:39:00 AM
From: Xpiderman	Respond to of 70976

All, AMAT is up $3+ point, December SEMI Book to Bill = 0.94! See Chart of Semiconductor Equipment Book to Bill Ratio and more, please click: geocities.com

To: Justa Werkenstiff who wrote (27794)	1/21/1999 1:41:00 PM
From: Justa Werkenstiff	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

ETEC CEO on CNBC this morning. FWIW, this company had one of the more bearish cc I heard last quarter. Note that he sees a "gradual" recovery and not "rapid" acceleration: CNBC - SQUAWK BOX ETEC SYSTEMS CEO STEPHEN COOPER JANUARY 21, 1999 ABSTRACT: Etec Systems makes the equipment used in semiconductor chips. Cooper sees Taiwan as a growth sector for the chip industry. Cooper says the company's systems sell for around $10 to $13 million. Mark: The semiconductor sector is rebounding recently, taking a company called Etec systems along for the ride. Etec is the world's leading maker of equipment used to make photolithography masks. The masks, in turn, are used to print circuit patterns on semiconductor chips. Etec controls about 75% of its market. However, some Wall Street analysts expect that number to grow. Yesterday, a Morgan Stanley analyst raised his price target on Etec to $55 a share from $45, saying that he believes by the end of this year, every mask maker in the world will be an Etec customer. Investors bought into the belief. Shares of Etec added more than ten points yesterday joining us now to tell us more about his business is Stephen Cooper, chairman and CEO at Etec Systems. Good morning, Mr. Cooper, good to see you. Good morning. Mark: Just to clarify for our audience, what you do, you're a semiequipment-equipment maker, you make the equipment with which the equipment maker can make equipment in the case of photo masks? Exactly. Our systems sell for around 10 to 13 million dollars. Mark: So you don't have to sell a lot of them to make money. Do you expect every mask maker in the world to be a customer by the end of next year? Well, I can't be quite that aggressive. There's a good chance due to consolidation of LG and Hyundai, there's a chance that we will gain in that arena. Plus there's several other things happening in the marketplace, consolidation overall that looks very favorable for Etec going forward. Mark: What are the things looking favorable? After this period we're familiar with that which looks unfavorable, Asia and all that. You tell me what looks good. Well, we see a general improvement in the semiconductor industry, although I don't really see a rapid acceleration of the growth, a gradual improvement over calendar '99 and in the calendar 2000 time frame the need for our type of equipment is going to accelerate as people move down to quarter micron production and that ramps up across the board, also .18 micron which is the next generation for memories and microprocessors, we see very favorable environment in the year 2000. We'll also introduce the next generation equipment in that time frame which should fuel our growth. Mark: Ron? Mr. Cooper, any possibility in your business, where a generation is only a year or two, that if orders are delayed for a year or two, you can skip a generation? Well, we don't see a delay of a year or two. Really what's happening is we're seeing acceleration of technology. The SIA Semiconductor Industry Association publish as road map every year, and what we've seen over the last three years is instead of extending that cycle, it's actually pulled in. So I believe over the next decade the environment for lithography in general and especially mask-making is very favorable. Mark: Let me ask you this, very nuts and bolts question: I assume that the masks, that any integrated circuit is made with a mask, is that correct? Yes. Mark: So in other words, your business down the food chain is not totally dependent on computers, it's also stuff that goes into appliances? Absolutely. Any electronic function that's produced today is requires masks. We're dependent not on the volume of semiconductors but on the increase in the number of designs. Each new design takes a set of masks of 25 to 30 masks. And that's what fuels our growth these new designs. Mark: Because I suppose you can make one or a thousand or a million or a billion out of one mask. The number of chips they're making doesn't matter but their profitability does? If they're not making money, Intel may cut back, as an example, may cut back on capital spending which is you? Exactly. And that's what we've seen over the last year in the Asian environment, Korea for example went from about 14% of sales down to 4% of sales, and we saw Taiwan increase from 6% to 22% as Taiwan becomes the foundry capital of the world, we actually see favorable environment in the Taiwan marketplace. Mark: Okay. Mr. Cooper, thank you very much, appreciate you filling us in. Thank you.