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

To: Jeffrey D who wrote (29133)	3/20/1999 1:41:00 PM
From: Jeffrey D	Respond to of 70976

Consilium contributes to AMAT's bottom line. Jeff << Taiwan's Chi Mei Optoelectronics Orders Consilium's Factory Automation System For FPD Fab MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., March 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Consilium, Inc., an Applied Materials, Inc. company, today announced that Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp., a manufacturer of flat panel displays (FPDs), placed a multi-million dollar order for software licenses and services to control and automate its new TFT-LCD (thin film transistor-liquid crystal display) fab in Tainan, Taiwan. Mr. J.Y. Ho, Chi Mei Optoelectronics' president, said, ''Our total plant investment is several hundred million dollars and it is important that we ramp up to full production very quickly. To accomplish this, we need world class suppliers that can demonstrate strong local support teams. We are confident that Consilium, the leading provider of factory automation software, will provide us with the technical capability and support services needed to meet our goals.'' Chi Mei Optoelectronics will implement Consilium's WorkStream DFS(TM) (Distributed Factory System) to automate and control the systems and processes throughout its fab. WorkStream DFS is the leading factory control system worldwide for semiconductor manufacturing and is also being successfully used by Japanese and Korean flat panel display manufacturers. ''This is a major design-stage win for Consilium. It extends our software leadership from wafer processing to include the rapidly-growing FPD market,'' said Wonin Baek, Consilium's Flat Panel Display and Automation Program Director. ''To help enable our customer's success, our engineering team will focus on delivering a fully automated plant to Chi Mei in record time.'' TFT-LCDs, which use large-scale, conventional semiconductor manufacturing technology in their fabrication process, are expected to eventually displace conventional cathode ray screens in TVs and computer monitors. FPD manufacturing demands extensive automated processing and transport equipment as well as software modeling of complex materials relationships and equipment status. Consilium's WorkStream product, with its proven three-level tracking capability, is especially well-suited to handle the integrated and automated transactions required by FPD manufacturing. For twenty years, Consilium has been the leading independent supplier of advanced, factory-wide control systems and services to semiconductor and electronics manufacturers. Consilium's software-based systems monitor and control the manufacturing process in real time, enabling manufacturers to enhance performance in the areas of cost, quality, customer service and speed. Its WorkStream DFS(TM) product family is used at approximately 300 advanced manufacturing sites around the world. Customers include Advanced Micro Devices, Hewlett-Packard Company, Hyundai Electronics Industries, LG Semiconductor, National Semiconductor, ST Microelectronics, Siemens AG, United Microelectronics Corporation, Wacker Siltronic AG and Winbond Electronics. Consilium was acquired by Applied Materials in December 1998. This press release contains certain forward looking statements that 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. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the market acceptance of Consilium's products. Consilium and Applied Materials assume no obligation to update the information in this press release. Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp. is part of Taiwan's privately held Chi Mei Corp., one of Taiwan's largest plastic and chemical producers, and was established in 1998 to manufacture TFT-LCDs. Consilium, Inc. is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and has ten offices offering products and services to its customers around the globe. For more information about Consilium, please visit the web site www.consilium.com. Applied Materials, Inc. is a Fortune 500 global growth company and the world's largest supplier of wafer fabrication systems and services to the global semiconductor industry. Applied Materials is traded on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol ''AMAT.'' Applied Materials' website is www.appliedmaterials.com. >>