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Applied Materials, Inc. is an American corporation that supplies equipment, services and software to enable the manufacture of semiconductor, flat panel display, Glass, WEB and solar (crystalline and thin film) products. The company is headquartered in Santa Clara, California in the Silicon Valley. Applied Materials creates and commercializes nanomanufacturing technology used in the production of semiconductor (integrated circuit) chips for electronic gear, flat panel displays for computers, smartphones and television, glass coatings for homes and buildings, web (flexible substrate) coatings for industry and photovoltaic solar cells and modules using both thin film and crystalline (wafer or bulk) photovoltaic technology. ==History== Founded in 1967 by Michael A. McNeilly and others, Applied Materials went public in 1972. In 1992, the corporation settled a lawsuit with three former employees for an estimated $600,000. The suit complained that the employees were driven out of the company after complaining about the courses Applied Scholastics had been hired to teach there. In 1993, the Applied Materials' Precision 5000 was inducted into the Smithsonian Institution's permanent collection of Information Age technology.〔http://www.appliedmaterials.com/about/milestones_old.html〕 In November 1996, Applied Materials acquired two Israeli companies for an aggregate amount of $285 million. Opal Technologies and Orbot Instruments for $175 million and $110 million in cash, respectively. Orbot produces systems for inspecting patterned silicon wafers for yield enhancement during the semiconductor manufacturing process, as well as systems for inspecting masks used during the patterning process. Opal develops and manufactures high-speed metrology systems used by semiconductor manufacturers to verify critical dimensions during the production of integrated circuits. In 2000, Etec Systems, Inc. was purchased. On June 27, 2001, Applied acquired Israeli company Oramir Semiconductor Equipment Ltd., a supplier of laser cleaning technologies for semiconductor wafers, in a purchase business combination for $21 million in cash.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Applied Materials, Inc. Inc August 2001 Quarterly Report, Form 10-Q, Filing Date August 24, 2001 )〕 In January 2008, Applied Materials purchased an Italian company Baccini, a designer of tools used in manufacturing solar cells.〔()〕 In 2009, Applied Materials opened its Solar Technology Center—the world’s largest commercial solar energy research and development facility in Xi’an, China.〔http://blog.appliedmaterials.com/bright-week-solar-energy-around-world〕 Applied Materials' acquisition of Semitool Inc. was completed in December 2009. Applied Materials announced its acquisition of Varian Semiconductor in May 2011.〔(Applied Materials to Buy Varian )〕 Applied Materials announced its merger with Tokyo Electron on September 24, 2013.〔()〕 If approved by government regulators, the combined company, to be called Eteris,〔http://online.wsj.com/articles/applied-materials-and-tokyo-electron-pick-eteris-for-post-merger-name-1404781083〕 would be the world's largest supplier of semiconductor processing equipment, with a total market value of more than $30 billion. But on April 27, 2015, Applied Materials announced that its merger with Tokyo Electron has been scrapped due to fears of dominating the semiconductor equipment industry.〔http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/28/business/dealbook/makers-of-chip-gear-call-off-10-billion-merger.html?ref=topics&_r=0〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Applied Materials」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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