AKT Ships Milestone 300th CVD System For Flat Panel Display Manufacturing; AKT Continues Leadership in Supplying PECVD Equipment.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 28, 2003

AKT, an Applied Materials company and the world's leading supplier of plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) systems to the flat panel display (FPD) industry, announces the shipment of its 300th PECVD system. The 300th system, an AKT 15K, was delivered to a customer for the production of generation-5 LCD displays for notebook and desktop computer monitors, and televisions.

"Since the mid-1990s, the flat panel display market has become a significant part of the global electronics industry, with a strong presence in consumers' homes for a large variety of products, including cell phones, computer monitors and televisions," said Dr. Kam Law, corporate vice president and general manager of AKT. "We've innovated six generations of equipment in the past ten years, meeting the challenges of a remarkable 22x increase in substrate area. Our success is a result of industry-leading technical resources as well as an absolute commitment to our customers to provide them with the technology they need to manage the rapid technology transitions that make this industry so dynamic."

AKT's PECVD product line includes systems for multiple generations of substrate sizes, including the AKT 5500 (generation-4 substrates approximately 700mm x 900mm), AKT 10K (generation-5 substrates approximately 1m x 1m), and AKT 15K (generation-5 substrates approximately 1.2m x 1.3m). The 300 systems are installed at almost every major TFT LCD manufacturer in Japan, Korea and Taiwan.

AKT's latest CVD system, the 25K, was announced in January, 2003, for manufacturing the emerging generation-6 substrates for TFT-LCD displays used in flat panel televisions. These substrates, measuring approximately 1.5m x 1.8m, represent a 75 percent increase in area over the previous generation. AKT will begin production shipments of the 25K system in mid-calendar 2003 to customers in Japan.

Applied Materials, the largest supplier of products and services to the global semiconductor industry, is one of the world's leading information infrastructure providers. Applied Materials enables Information for Everyone(TM) by helping semiconductor manufacturers produce more powerful, portable and affordable chips. Applied Materials' web site is www.appliedmaterials.com.