The need for higher performance and more energy-efficient chips is driving high growth rates for leading-edge logic, high-bandwidth memory and advanced packaging. These are areas where Applied is the process equipment leader, and we expect to grow our semiconductor equipment business over 20 percent this calendar year.
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Applied Materials Inc. will pay $252.5 million to settle a US Commerce Department investigation into improper exports to China, ending a yearslong saga for the largest American supplier of chipmaking machinery. The agreement resolves allegations by the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security that certain shipments to China between November 2020 and July 2022 didn't comply with export regulations, the company said in a statement Wednesday.
These aren't commodity tools. Each EUV system costs north of $150 million, and you can't manufacture cutting-edge chips without them. TSMC is ASML's largest customer, and the foundry's push into 2nm production (already started) and future 1.6nm nodes requires even more EUV capacity. The math is straightforward: TSMC's five new Arizona fabs plus capacity expansion in Taiwan means dozens of EUV systems. At $150-200 million per machine, we're talking $3-5 billion flowing to ASML from this capex cycle alone.
While I continue to be a big fan of the mega-cap tech innovators, I also think some lesser-covered AI firms - at least relative to the likes of Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) and the rest of the titans worth more than $1 trillion - are worth watching and even betting on, even if their narratives require more patience from investors. It's not just about the hyperscalers!
