The USD 303 million acquisition of thin-film deposition equipment maker Applied Films Corp. by Applied Materials Inc. has already been approved by federal antitrust regulators only two weeks after the…
The USD 303 million acquisition of thin-film deposition equipment maker Applied Films Corp. by Applied Materials Inc. has already been approved by federal antitrust regulators only two weeks after the deal was announced. Until a few years ago, Applied Materials focused on its core business of making computer chips. It ventured into another sector with the USD 1.8 billion acquisition in 2000 of Etec Systems Inc., a maker of equipment for etching patterns into semiconductor wafers. However, the poor performance of the Etec unit eventually led to its closure. According to Applied Materials president and CEO Michael Splinter, the Applied Films deal will be much better, and he predicted it would add more than a billion dollars to his company“s market over the next several years.