Semiconductor Capital Equipment Stocks Discussion

Top 261. Apr 14, 2000 9:25 AM

» matttheduck - great news

and its especially nice to see the markets completely ignoring earnings. klac crushed estimates, grew revenues at 96 percent and earnings at 300 percent and went down 17 percent. if that can be explained as the workings of a rational market, i'll eat my bill.

-- posted by matttheduck

Top 262. Apr 14, 2000 9:56 AM

» Kirk - KLA-Tencor sales explode 96 percent

Full Story

SAN JOSE, Calif. (CBS.MW) -- KLA-Tencor, a maker of tools that detects defects on chips during production, said Thursday sales exploded 96 percent in the third-quarter, yet its stock dropped 17 percent.

<img src=http://chart.bigcharts.com/custom/market... width=299 height=164 align=left>
Net income for the San Jose, Calif. company (KLAC: news, msgs) totaled $73.3 million, or 38 cents a share, five cents above the estimate from analysts polled by First Call.

This compares with $20.8 million, or 11 cents a share, in the year-ago period.

Revenue for the quarter bounded higher to $413 million, vs. $210.9 million earned the year earlier. See press release.

KLA-Tencor stock shed 13 1/4 to 64 3/4, and is down 34 percent from its high of 97 3/4 marked on April 7.

Gross margins in the period grew to 56 percent, up from the 54 percent reported in the December quarter.

The company said its experienced record bookings in the third quarter and backlog increased "substantially." Orders were strong in Taiwan as well as countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

Additionally, KLA-Tencor said seven of its product lines hit new quarterly records as demand for inspection requirements for sub-0.18 micron technologies ramps up, along with the transition to copper.

Get your catcher's Mitt!
There are babies comming down in bucket loads!

-- posted by Kirk

http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB955752027700712445.htm

Top 263. Apr 16, 2000 11:01 AM

» Kirk - Larry Bowman in Barrons

From SI:
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/stocktalk...

[edited] Barron's has an interview with Larry Bowman, manager of a successful tech fund. Buy Barron's just to read that one item! He sounds realistic, careful and optimistic about tech. Mentions semi equips, semiconductors and networking companies as having the strongest fundamentals. This guy is no Jim Cramer, he's an engineer by training.

Online it's called "Still High on Tech".

excerpt

Q: Which sectors are seeing this sequential revenue growth?

A: The sectors with the strongest fundamentals right now -- I am not talking valuation, I am talking business fundamentalsare semiconductor capital equipment, semiconductor stocks, networking companies, in which we would include broadband companies in that category as well as niches such as semiconductor foundries like Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing.

But Larry also has several cautions, so please read the whole interview.

The link for subscribers is...

Gottfried

-- posted by Kirk

http://messages.yahoo.com/bbs?action=m&b...

Top 264. Apr 16, 2000 9:51 PM

» Kirk - February Orders Of Japanese Chip-Making

February Orders Of Japanese Chip-Making
Equipment Rise 136%

TOKYO (Nikkei)--Orders of Japanese-made semiconductor
manufacturing equipment, including exports, came to 155.62 billion
yen in February, a year-on-year gain of 136.7%, and the twelfth
straight monthly year-on-year increase, the Semiconductor
Equipment Association of Japan reported.

Orders for assembly equipment showed a gain of 194.2%. Orders
for wafer processing equipment, the linchpin of semiconductor
manufacturing, rose by 137.7% to 105.64 billion yen.

Orders by the Japanese market alone, including imports, totaled
65.35 billion yen, up 96.4%. Various semiconductor companies
have been increasing capital spending to help meet high demand for
semiconductor parts for use in mobile telephones and personal
computers.

Orders for assembly equipment came to 8.96 billion yen, an
increase of 166.4%. Orders for testing equipment came to 12.15
billion yen, up by 156.6%. Sales in the Japanese market totaled
59.01 billion yen, a gain of 83.4%.

(The Nikkei Industrial Daily Monday edition)

-- posted by Kirk

Top 265. Apr 16, 2000 9:55 PM

» JenL_2 - Still High on Tech

Here's the whole Larry Bowman Interview from 4/17 Barron's:

Still High on Tech

Despite the wreckage, he calls the fundamentals "extraordinarily strong"

by Sandra Ward

An Interview With Larry Bowman ~ In the early 'Eighties, he worked for technology companies -- Texas Instruments and Apple Computer, to be exact. By the late 'Eighties, with a Stanford MBA in his pocket to complement an engineering degree from Lehigh, Bowman switched to investing in technology companies. A stint from 1987 to 1993 managing technology portfolios and an emerging-growth fund at what he calls the best mutual-fund company in the world -- Fidelity -- led next to a year running a $1 billion portfolio for what he considered the best hedge-fund company in the world, Tiger Management. It's only natural, then, that the $6 billion technology investment firm he started in San Mateo, California, in 1995, Bowman Capital, would come to be regarded as the best there is. His Spinnaker Technology Fund, a multi-cap portfolio, has averaged compound annual returns of 74% before fees for the past five years with a net market exposure of between 35% and 40%. Since launching the mostly small-cap Spinnaker Founders Fund in the summer of 1997, he and his team -- including another former Fidelity star, managing partner John Hurley -- have averaged 131% compound annual returns before fees with no down quarters. The Spinnaker Crossover Fund, a portfolio focused on private equity investments, was introduced last year. To learn why Bowman is more bullish than he's ever been, read on.

Barron's: Larry, tell me how you were positioned ahead of the past two weeks?
Bowman: Like always, recognizing the devil is different from keeping him out of your house. We were able to do three things. We were able to reduce longs. We were able to increase small, illiquid, high-beta shorts to provide some correlation. And we were able to buy a fair amount of index puts. Timing was everything. This was like lying in bed at home and a 747 crashes into your house. You crawl out from the rubble, lift up your head and say, "Whew, thank God that's over," and then a B-1 bomber lands. We got hurt. We did better than the indexes. In retrospect, you wish, of course, you would have bought $10 million in index puts three weeks ago, but our firm invests in fundamentals, and the fundamentals are extraordinarily strong. We've got probably 120 companies in the portfolio-small-cap, mid-cap, large-cap.

Q: So, are you net long right now?
A: We are dramatically under the 50% net-long position we had a week ago, which was bullish for me. Then we were 90% gross long with call options that would have brought that exposure to 100%. We were 25% gross short and 25% protected with index options. I'm hesitant to reveal what our exact portfolio structure is at this point, because there is so much speculation surrounding hedge funds that I'm concerned we might become targets. But in the 5 1/2 years since I started my firm, I don't know if my clients have ever, ever heard me with such a bullish tone. I am usually cautious. There are a lot of stocks I've been waiting months and months to buy and couldn't. Now I can get them at a discount. One is Veritas Software, a storage-management software company, down from 175 to 82. This is a company with accelerating revenues, expanding margins and visibility. You can put it in your kids' IRA and keep it there without looking back. I think the shift from tech to outside of tech is over because a lot of these companies that were oversold, whether they were financials or energy or cyclicals or health care, do not have sustainable revenues and earnings growth. You have a huge pop out of them, but now people are going to go where the growth is. And I think they have to go back to technologies. The key there is not only going to be earnings, which I think will be phenomenal for the March quarter, but also the relative strength of these other areas.

Q: By the same token, you also think the situation is a bit tenuous. Correct?
A: Yes. It is tenuous because of the market dynamics. You have rising interest rates. It is impossible to predict cash flows going forward. I also cannot predict how damaged the retail psyche has been. All these guys coming in and doing day-trading. Are they going to come back? Have we lost them forever? So there are things that are impossible, certainly impossible for me, to predict.The volatility is out of control here and it is more psychological than fundamental.

Q: There have been plenty of rumors circulating about hedge funds blowing up.
A: We've heard them. We've been included in them. We're in good shape. Our funds ranged from up 17% to up 44% in the first quarter. Usually when those nasty rumors begin we're near a bottom.

Q: How did you feel about the news that your old boss Julian Robertson is folding Tiger Management?
A: It's a little sad because it is the passing of an era. Julian has had a spectacular track record over the years, a good 17 or 18 years of 30-some-odd-percent compounded annual returns.

Q: You left his shop after one year. Why?
A: Entrepreneurial spirit more than anything. I also believe the right platform for investing in technology stocks has to be a firm which is technology-centric. I wanted to lead a firm that was dedicated 100% to technology. For that, you have to be in Silicon Valley. You have to have as a large percentage of your limited partners both venture capitalists and high-tech executives. You have to be in the information flow. You have to be in the private equity business so you get the synergies. There is $5 trillion of technology market-cap in the U.S. right now and literally thousands of companies, and it takes a lot of fundamental analysis. The analysis is different from virtually any other sector. That's the platform we have today, that was not the platform Julian had, nor was he ever going to have it.

Q: People say the captains of the technology industry are on your speed-dial. True?
A: I don't use a speed-dial so I don't know where that came from. It is easy to sit in your office in Boston, New York, Chicago or wherever and watch stocks fluctuate every day and believe you know what is really happening with technology companies and sectors. I call it Ivory Tower syndrome. You spend a lot of your time talking to other investors, buy-side friends, sell-side analysts and traders, and that's the wrong perspective. The right perspective, and one of the areas where we have an edge, is that we talk to the people that work in the industry. You would be surprised how many times Wall Street thinks one thing, but the fact of the matter is truly different. That creates opportunities, and that's what we try and capitalize on.

Q: Isn't there the danger that you get too close to the people and the industry to be objective?
A: That's always a risk and it's a risk for everybody. I'm an engineer by training, and we have a number of engineers working in our company. I like to hire engineers. An engineer designs a circuit or writes a program and it works or it doesn't work. There is no misunderstanding, there is no opinion, there is no bias, there is no emotion. I learned from Peter Lynch years ago that there's a high positive correlation between stock price and earnings growth. I've modified that rule to also include revenue growth and volatility. For me, that's evolved over the years because to invest in a technology company, you really need to see revenue growth, you need to gain share through unit growth. Initially, I'm slanted toward unit growth, which drives revenue growth, then I can see my way to earnings growth at some point. I'm willing to invest in a company that has explosive unit and revenue growth without earnings, because I know they will eventually get a lot of operating leverage and earnings will come through at a later period. That leads us to one of the most important things in stocks, and that's expanding margins. Expanding gross margins, especially expanding operating margins and expanding multiple is what this is all about.

Q: What else comes into play when you're considering an investment?
A: Money is found where the good ideas are. Two-thirds of the time we fall in the category of high-quality growth. We look for companies that are "category killers," that dominate their segments, have great managements and are in businesses with high barriers to entry. They could be small-, mid-or large-size companies. In technology, the winners tend to distance themselves even more from the losers because it's so competitive. It's like a large pit filled with pit bulls: If one gets wounded, all the rest jump on him and it's over quick. Microsoft has outdistanced itself from the competition. Dell Computer has outdistanced itself. Cisco Systems has outdistanced itself. Usually you don't see the gaps close. Usually they increase their lead because of the company's competitive advantage. They gain more customers, they gain more employees. Their stock works better and that gives them more currency to do acquisitions and reward employees. They get a business model that works, and it just keeps propelling itself. For those companies you typically need to pay more, a higher multiple, because they are generally recognized as good companies. Even when they are small. But we like a good entry point as well.

Q: Meaning what?
A: Some sort of an edge. If we're convinced that a company's earnings will come in 10%, 15% or 20% higher than other people's, that's a good entry point. A selloff in the market is another good entry point.

Q: Does Microsoft still meet your criteria?
A: Microsoft qualifies because they have a value-added that no one else in the world has: a monopoly of the operating systems in personal computers that is never going to be displaced. It is just not going to happen. They have a barrier to entry and distribution because they're attached to every PC out there. That generates a spectacular amount of cash flow and allows them to get into a lot of other businesses. It's a spectacular company, which is, of course, widely recognized. It's a company growing revenues by 20%-30% a year, generating a couple of billion a month -- a month -- of free cash flow, with virtually no hard assets or capital spending, and it's not going to miss any quarters because their accounting is so conservative.

Q: But their growth rate is slowing.
A: That's not enough not to own it. It's more a function of determining where you want to get in and out. But they are at the start of a new product cycle and growth will reaccelerate. While we own some Microsoft, we have a lot of other opportunities.

Q: What's changed from when you first started investing in technology and now that makes it so important to know the venture capitalists and take private equity stakes?
A: Lots of things have changed. Investing in technology is more efficient than it used to be, for one thing, and that makes it harder to find an edge. Money attracts brains, and the stock market has been a great place to make money over the past 10 years, since 1987 really. When I started at Fidelity, I was one of two tech analysts, and the other one left shortly after I got there. Now there are probably 500 hightech hedge funds that you can find the names of and a couple of thousand other ones whose names we don't know. Everyone is getting into the business. I used to be able to call a company and learn something from an officer of a company that no one else would know for a week or two. You could do fundamental analysis and add a lot of value. Technology as a percentage of the market was under 10% in the late 'Eighties compared with about 30% now. I didn't need to do back then what we need to do now to be competitive and excel.
Now we need to be in Silicon Valley. We need a large percentage of limited partnerships with tech executives. We need two dozen analysts. We have to be in the private equity business. That is mandatory. We get to see these companies from six months to two years before they go public. We've had that much time to do due diligence. It becomes a lot more evident to us what the long-term viability of the story is. To sell an IPO on Wall Street today, a company walks into some mutual-fund company, gives a one-hour pitch, and that company is supposed to make a decision on whether to buy the stock. It's not humanly possible. You have little chance to do due diligence. It's the first time they've met management, probably. You don't know whether they are overly promotional or overly conservative because you have no history with them. Private equity investing gives us a huge advantage. We've done around 50 private equity investments since the beginning of last year. We are doing deals now at a rate of about one a week. We will know these companies better than any one else when they go public. We learn a lot about new and upcoming technologies and businesses. And we hear the private-company views on public companies. Don't forget that the guys in the private companies all left public companies. Those are great insights.

Q: What else has changed?
A: You have a real explosion in retail investors in technology stocks. There have been enormous cash flows into mutual funds and 401(k) plans the past few years and that has created a lot of liquidity. Online trading is another form of competition. A lot of information that has been available only to the institutional marketplace is now available to the retail investor through companies like TheStreet.com.

Q: By the way, are you still an investor in TheStreet.com?
A: We have a position.

Q: Long or short?
A: Long.

Q: Ouch. Okay, you were saying ...
A: Well, we have more competition from institutions and from individuals. But our advantage is that mutual-fund companies can't go to cash, can't hedge, can't buy puts, can't short. They have to remain relatively weighted because that's how they are measured against the market. We don't have to cover all the stocks all the time. We can focus our energies on what's hot. We've got lockups that range anywhere from one to five years. That allows us to invest in our own company with confidence, but also to know that we can afford to be more patient on some stocks because we know the assets are there. We don't have to be as trading-oriented as some mutual funds where you come into work every day and you don't know if you have 20% more or 20% less cash and where you are totally subject to the vagaries of the retail investor.

Q: What do you make of the recent volatility? Had the Nasdaq become overvalued, in your opinion?
A: There are a number of things going on, and we're not out of the woods yet. Let's be clear about that. Bear-market rallies are much sharper than bull-market rallies. Things are tentative. Too much money was made too easily by too many people, and the world doesn't work that way. It would be nice if it did. What some people call New Economy stocks were overbought. Too many people were buying these stocks only because they were going up. The stocks went up so much because there was a lack of liquidity. The market is an evil creature. It will find a way to hurt the most amount of people that it can. It will set a trap. How it lays the trap is always different. Sometimes it's a macro event, it's interest rates, it's something overseas or it's a sector shift. The trap this time was liquidity, which was triggered on March 10 by a rotation out of technology and into names that had underperformed. Market-makers are not in the business of losing money. Traders take no risk on trading desks. Traders on sell-side desks are not in the business to facilitate trading. They are going to make bad markets. You call me up and say you want to buy 100,000 shares of AMCC at 140. I see some for sale at 144. I go and buy it at 144 and I come back to you and tell you it's 145 and you get it at 145. I make a little bit of money, you get your stock. Stocks have been volatile because they are illiquid and that makes the market real sloppy. You had people buying on margin. And, I believe, there were value funds and growth-and-income funds breaking the intent of their funds' mandate and not always knowing what they owned. Combine that with a situation where a lot of money has been made really quickly, people's first reaction is to sell. The other bad part about this is rising interest rates, which is never a good thing.

Q: Funny you should say that, because a lot of tech investors argue that interest rates don't matter anymore when assessing tech stocks.
A: Interest rates have to matter. How could they not? Mathematically, interest rates matter, especially to tech companies. Let's start from the point that earnings are the things that matter most eventually. The way I determine the present value of future earnings is by discounting against a particular interest rate. If I'm using the long rate and one day it's 7% and another day it's 10%, well that's a 10% discount per year I have to apply. If I'm paying for earnings that are four years away, that's a huge difference in present value. It has to matter. Where it doesn't matter in tech is in the cost of debt because they rely on equity financing, by and large. But that's a smaller piece of the puzzle. Interest rates are also very important in terms of cash flow: If corporations and asset-allocation funds and pension funds can get 10% in the bond market versus 6% six months ago they are going to move a lot of money to bonds. So it has to matter.

Q: Anything positive about this correction?
A: When you look at it in terms of the overall market, it is actually quite bullish.

Q: Why?
A: Friday aside, breadth has been widening. There is enough cash out there, and people feel good enough about all the prospects to buy stock. This correction would be easier if tech-company fundamentals were fading. This is a broad statement, not true for all sectors, so let's just take it that way, but on average, March-quarter revenues are typically down sequentially anywhere from 5% to 10%. This year, however, they will be up sequentially for the industry. This is something that happens once every 10 years. It's a real surprise, too, because of the whole Y2K debacle. Y2K really confused everybody. What's become evident, aside from a few hiccups like IBM, was either there was no change in spending habits or there was an increase in spending habits. There's a realization that you can't compete without technology. Technology is a strategic weapon, and if you are not on the leading edge, you will suffer, you will lose.

Q: Which sectors are seeing this sequential revenue growth?
A: The sectors with the strongest fundamentals right now -- I am not talking valuation, I am talking business fundamentals are semiconductor capital equipment, semiconductor stocks, networking companies, in which we would include broadband companies in that category as well as niches such as semiconductor foundries like Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing.

Q: Tell us about these foundries.
A: It's the same trend we saw with contract manufacturers a decade ago, when companies like Sun Microsystems and Apple outsourced production and cut down on overhead to focus on design and marketing. It's now starting to hit the foundry business. Semiconductor companies outsource their chip making to foundries. It is explosive, and it's in its infancy. Right now, outsourcing within the semiconductor universe is probably 10% of total production. Based on what happened with contract manufacturing companies, we think they can get to 30%-50%. It may take five years, it may take eight years. If you take normal semiconductor growth here, about 25% a year in terms of units, and add the increased penetration with normal secular growth of semiconductors, these companies are going to be growing 100% a year for a couple of years. Chartered and TSM are the real leaders there. We like them a lot. We've owned Chartered from the middle of 1999 -- it went public early last year -- and we continue to buy it on the dips. They just printed 29 cents a share for the quarter, when we were looking for 20 and the Street was looking for 18 cents. Revenues were higher than expected. Last year they did $690 million in revenues, and we think that could reach $1 billion this year. Operating margins were 7% last quarter, 12% this quarter. We see a lot of forward expansion. Operating margins are exploding. They lost money last year but will make more than $1 this year and more than $2 next year.

Q: Other favorites?
A: Optical is still huge. Optical technology, in which light is used to propel data a lot faster than other mediums, accounts for up to 5%-10% of the data generated in the U.S. It will probably go up to 50%. You are combining a new technology with an insatiable demand for bandwidth and explosive demand for data generation. Names we like are SDL, E-Tek, JDS Uniphase and Sycamore Networks.

Q: What do you think of the Internet companies here?
A: I am going to say 20% of the Internet companies that have come public in the past two years are going to be spectacular long-term winners, and those will be the ones with great barriers to entry and great value added. The remaining 80% will be out of business or consolidated. Right now, the relative business momentum, sequential growth, is not as strong as it is in other areas. I'm going to get more of an upside revenue and earnings surprise the next quarter or two from what I would call leading-edge, but more traditional, companies than the Internet companies. There'll also be a lot of insider selling as lockups end and from secondaries as companies run out of cash. A lot of these executives were worth $500 million six months ago; now they are worth $300 million. If 90% of your net worth is tied up in a dot.com company, you are rushing to the door to sell the stock.

Q: Why don't they sell their expensive homes in California?
A: Because your spouse doesn't like that. He or she thought that was the reason you were working 24/7.

Q: Which Internet companies are in the 80% that won't make it?
A: Certainly e-tailers. But if there's one company that has a real chance it's Amazon.com. Amazon is the Dell Computer of e-tailers. Even though, by and large, it is a crummy business, you can still create one of the best companies in the world vis-a-vis execution. They have so many members now they are trying to morph into a portal. You hang out and have a good experience because you are learning a lot of other things. They also have an incubator, venture capital and such. That is the one I think could be a home run.

Q: Do you own it?
A: We own a small amount because I have other alternatives. It's the best house in a bad neighborhood. When you buy the best house in a bad neighborhood it is tough to make money until the neighborhood improves.

Q: What about the 20% of Internet companies that make it? Which do you like?
A: Some of the Internet infrastructure plays we love. We own a ton of Exodus Communications. I was buying more during the recent declines. It provides Web-hosting services, which means, say, if you are Merrill Lynch and you have a couple of million online traders, Exodus takes care of the communication equipment for you and the security and the software. They give you continual service and provide future upgrades. And you never leave because it would be too much work and the costs would be enormous. It's another form of outsourcing. As Internet penetration increases worldwide, from 2%-3% to 50%-75%, so will Exodus' business. We are looking for Exodus to more than double revenues this year to $850 million from $242 million last year. They will continue to double revenues. All the while margins are expanding. EBITDA will be 35 cents a share and we think $1.80 a share next year. They have historically showed 40% revenue growth sequentially per quarter ever since they have been public. We believe Exodus is going to continue to out-execute and outgrow its main competitors, IBM and AT&T.

Subscribe to WSJ & Barron's Online @ http://www.wsj.com

.....Jen

-- posted by JenL_2

Top 266. Apr 19, 2000 9:14 PM

» Kirk - Intel plans $2 billion chip plant in Israel

03:18 AM ET 04/19/00

Intel plans $2 billion chip plant in Israel - paper
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/stor...

JERUSALEM, April 19 (Reuters) - Microchip maker Intel Corp is exploring the possibility of investing $2 billion to $2.25 billion to build another chip plant in Israel, the Ha'aretz newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Intel has a very large presence in Israel, including a new $1.6 billion chip plant that opened last year in Kiryat Gat in southern Israel.

According to the paper, Intel wishes to build a second plant in Kiryat Gat and the company has asked the ministry of industry and trade for advice on what benefits it would receive.

Intel received a large government subsidy for its previous chip plant.

Ha'aretz said Intel presented Industry Minister Ran Cohen with a declaration of its intentions of building the new plant, which would produce 0.13 micron caliber microchips and would
employ at least 3,000 people.

((Jerusalem newsroom, +972-2-537-0502,
jerusalem.newsroom@reuters.com))

-- posted by Kirk

Top 267. Apr 20, 2000 6:55 AM

» Kirk - Silicon Valley Group Shines!

Silicon Valley Group Reports Second Quarter Results

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 20, 2000--Silicon Valley Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: SVGI) today reported sales of $204,596,000 for the second quarter of fiscal 2000 ended March 31, 2000, representing a 233% increase over second quarter fiscal 1999 sales of $61,496,000 and an increase of 14% over first quarter fiscal 2000 sales of $179,801,000. Sales for the six-month period ended March 31, 2000 were $384,397,000 compared to $146,983,000 for the corresponding period of the prior fiscal year. The Company recorded net income of $11,611,000 or $0.32 per diluted share for the quarter ended March 31, 2000 compared to a net loss of $17,994,000 or ($0.55) per diluted share in the second quarter of fiscal 1999 and net income of $6,242,000 or $0.18 per diluted share in the first quarter of fiscal 2000. During the first six months of fiscal 2000, the Company recorded net income of $17,853,000 or $0.51 per diluted share compared to a net loss of $25,026,000 or ($0.76) per diluted share for the six months ended March 31, 1999.

The Company recorded orders of $305,693,000 for the second quarter of fiscal 2000 representing a book-to-bill ratio of 1.5-to-1. Second quarter fiscal 2000 bookings increased 84% compared to second quarter fiscal 1999 bookings of $165,710,000 and increased 49% compared to first quarter fiscal 2000 bookings of $205,028,000. During the second quarter, orders for twenty-three Micrascan systems were added to the Company's backlog. Due to the Company's policy of only including orders with shipment dates within twelve months of receipt of the order in backlog, the Company has orders for an additional ten Micrascan systems which were excluded from the quarter end backlog of $483,779,000.

The Company attributes the improvement in earnings during the second fiscal quarter of 2000 compared to the previous year's second fiscal quarter and to the first quarter of the current fiscal year to improved profitability on increased sales.

The second fiscal quarter of 2000 included the favorable settlement of a customer order termination and the reduction in the annual income tax rate from 38% to 36%, reduced in part by certain product related expenses which in the aggregate had a favorable affect of $0.03 per diluted share of net income.

"The Company is responding to the challenges of the upturn in the Semiconductor Equipment industry," said Papken S. Der Torossian, Chairman and CEO. "Profitability continues to improve and orders received for the quarter were at an all-time-high. As part of the quarter's order rate success, the lithography operation expanded its customer base of the high numerical aperture 193 product to include two high volume producers of memory products, as well as a new customer for its .6na 193 product."

-- posted by Kirk

Top 268. Apr 20, 2000 7:46 AM

» Kirk - Motorola to Spend $2B on British Plant

Thursday April 20 8:02 AM ET
Motorola to Spend $2B on British Plant
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000420...

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. electronics company Motorola Inc. said Thursday it would spend $2 billion to develop a major silicon chip-making factory in Scotland that Hyundai built four years ago but never opened.

It said it would buy the mothballed plant near Dunfermline, north of Edinburgh, and develop it into its largest semiconductor facility in Europe, employing 1,350 people and turning out ``DigitalDNA'' chips for mobile phones in just over a year from now. South Korea's Hyundai Electronics Co. built the plant near Dunfermline, one of Britain's worst unemployment blackspots, in 1997.

A downturn in the Asian economy and global semiconductor demand meant it was never used.

Motorola said this was its largest inward investment to date in Europe and would herald the next phase of growth for its semiconductor manufacturing operations.

It is already the largest manufacturing employer in Scotland, with a total workforce of 6,500 at three plants in East Kilbride, South Queensferry and Easter Inch.

Scottish Enterprise, the state investment promotion agency, said the news boosted Scotland's position as a major chip maker and the knock-on effect could help plans to create up to 7,500 more jobs in the area.

Motorola opened its first Scottish operations at East Kilbride, south of Glasgow, in 1969 and has since invested more than one billion pounds (1.6 billion) into the region's economy.

It is the biggest private sector employer in Scotland, with a total workforce of 6,500. It employs another 3,500 elsewhere in Britain.

Motorola, which first came to Britain 33 years ago and is one of the country's 10 biggest exporters, said the plant aimed to become a world leader in productivity and cost effectiveness.

``The new facility will allow Motorola to help meet strong current, and anticipated future, market demand,'' it said.

Demand for mobile phones, especially the next generation which will allow Internet browsing and video conferencing, is expected to explode around the world over the next few years.

Motorola makes embedded processors which enable customers to create ``smart'' products and new business opportunities in the networking and computing, wireless communications, transportation, and imaging and entertainment markets.

Its worldwide semiconductor sales were $7.4 billion in 1999.

-- posted by Kirk

Top 269. Apr 21, 2000 6:21 AM

» Kirk - SEMI's book-to-bill at 1.45

Chip equipment orders accelerate, pushing SEMI's book-to-bill to 1.45

Bookings by North American-based suppliers reach fifth-straight record in February

Semiconductor Business News
(04/21/00, 08:56:14 AM EDT)
http://www.semibiznews.com/story/OEG2000...

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--New orders for chip production systems climbed to a fifth-straight record in March, pushing the monthly book-to-bill ratio for North American-based tool suppliers to 1.45, said the Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) trade group here. A book-to-bill ratio of 1.45 means $145 in orders were received for each $100 worth of product shipped by suppliers.

"Semiconductor equipment bookings continue to accelerate across all sectors," said Stanley T. Myers, president of SEMI. "Related worldwide equipment statistics information from the February 2000 SEMI-SEAJ report shows all world regions are participating in this development, with Taiwan, Europe and the ROW (rest of world) regions posting the most aggressive growth in orders."

SEMI reported late on Thursday evening that new tool orders grew 95% to $2.452 billion in March from $1.257 billion in the same month last year, based on the trade group's three-month moving average for worldwide bookings at North American suppliers. Compared to February, new tool orders were up sequentially 7% from a revised figure of $2.294 billion.

The value of tool shipments in March rose 79% to $1.685 billion from just $944 million in the month last year. The bookings were up 6% from $1.595 billion from February, based on SEMI's three-month average.

During SEMI's Semicon Europa 2000 trade show in Munich this month, the trade group presented two growth scenarios for semiconductor capital equipment markets. One showed revenues for production systems growing 20% to $30 billion in 2000 from $20 billion last year, while a "fast-ramp" forecast indicated that equipment shipments could jump 44% to $36 billion in 2000. The fast-ramp forecast indicates that current business cycle would peak two years earlier (in 2002) earlier than the "slow-ramp" scenario.

-- posted by Kirk