6 ms·
Equipment companies are running at an all-out sprint to ship fabrication equipment. Applied Materials, the world's largest by revenue, has 1,390 open positions.
by 11thEarlOfMar 6y ago
Equipment companies are running at an all-out sprint to ship fabrication equipment. Applied Materials, the world's largest by revenue, has 1,390 open positions. #4 Lam Research has 570.
The equipment space is brutally cyclic, akin to the oil services industry. Revenue can jump as much as 60% year over year, only to plummet 40% the next.
It's always worrisome to see these macro-trends, feasting now, but famine sure to follow...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- UncleOxidant 6y ago> Applied Materials ... has 1,390 open positions. #4 Lam Research has 570 With this many openings they must be having problems actually getting stuff done. But as you suggest, by the time they get a good chunk of these openings hired for they'll be looking to cut heads again. People who have been through one cycle before probably aren't inclined to go through the buzzsaw again and so move onto other industries.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- gbil 6y agoMaybe they are just planning on enhancing their manufacturing capabilities. Quote from their Quarter call: "Applied Materials is also trying to tap into efforts to bring more chip manufacturing to the US and reinforce the nation's leadership in chips." And the majority of the job openings are CA and TX
- syntaxing 6y agoI think this is the problem. The downcycle for the semi industry should of came around 2-3 years ago. The issue is that never came and the industry is growing at an even more ridiculous rate. The semi industry is single handed buying a good chunk of the OEM equipment space these past 3 years. Just get a THK rail quote and look at awe at the one year+ lead time.
- refulgentis 6y agoThis plus secular trends due to the shortage _itself_ inducing further future plant development at home, simply for redundancy as a hedge against tail risk...think we're closer to the start of a 5-10 year boom than the end
- 11thEarlOfMar 6y agoThere was a huge boom in equipment in 2017 the 3D NAND demand thundered in. Semis over-invested as they frequently do, and the equipment biz then softened in 2018-2019. 2020 was solid and now 2021 is off to the races again, thanks (sadly) to the technology accelerating effects of COVID.
- baybal2 6y agoAre you working in toolmaking by any chance?
- 11thEarlOfMar 6y agoYes, as it happens. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25604508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25604508 AMA
- baybal2 6y agoAn actual RnD, or engineering? In the link you point to the need of "EU fab." Who do you think will buy its chips? Germans for their cars?
- 11thEarlOfMar 6y agoSystem engineering. We sell subsystems and components to the equipment companies. Chips are sold globally for the most part, regardless of where they are made. EU, US, Japan, Taiwan & Korea made chips are typically leading edge and sold globally. Some China-made chips are only used in China, but they have a large export market for low-cost chips.
- throwaway4good 6y agoThe semiconductor shortage is being amplified by the US-China tech sanctions. This will create a massive overinvestment in the sector where China will build capacity to meet its own need and gain independence of US controlled supplies. At the same time western countries will invest massively in the sector to keep its technogical lead.
- baybal2 6y agoPackaging is hot. The question how hot it is? Buddies of mine want now explore a niche of very low end litho market for a brand new entry. I want to throw them an idea of capitalising on very cheap interposers, but don't have much confidence in how long advanced packaging will be able to attract hot money.