Semiconducter equipment giant Applied Materials Inc. (Nasdaq: AMAT), through its independent production quality control business division, Applied Materials Israel, will sign an agreement tomorrow with Chinese company SMIC worth $110 million. The deal, notes Applied Materials Israel, is the largest which the company has closed since it began operation here 10 years ago.
Applied Israel operates in the field of Process Diagnostics and Control (PDC) and develops and produces testing and control systems which identify flaws in silicon wafers. Applied Israel's products are relevant to semiconductor giants that manufacture huge quantities of chips at an investment of billions for production lines.
SMIC is the third largest provider of outsourcing for integrated circuits to third parties in the world. Under the current agreement, SMIC will buy Applied's UVision system which became available several months ago, to provide quality control for printing 65 nanometers integrated circuits. SMIC will also acquire the SEMVision system for automatic flaw diagnostics