More fab tool vendors top expectations

SAN FRANCISCO—More semiconductor manufacturing equipment vendors posted strong quarterly results Wednesday (July 28), with Lam Research Corp., Teradyne Inc. and Axcelis Technologies Inc. all putting up numbers that exceeded analysts' expectations.

Lam (Fremont, Calif.) reported sales of $695.3 million for the quarter ended June 27, up 10 percent from the previous quarter and up nearly 220 percent compared with the year-ago period.

Lam reported a net income of $140 million, or $1.11 per share for the second quarter, up 17 percent from the previous quarter. In the year-ago quarter, Lam recorded a net loss of $88.5 million, or 70 cents per share.

Consensus analyst expectations had called for Lam to report sales for the quarter of $656.5 million, according to Yahoo Finance.

Shipments for the June quarter were $694 million, down from $735 million in the previous quarter, Lam said.

"Market share gains and solid execution drove strong results for the June quarter," said Steve Newberry, Lam's president and CEO, in a statement. "We believe that we will achieve substantial shipped market share gains in both the etch and clean businesses for calendar year 2010. We continued to win important new applications in the first half of 2010 in both businesses."

Teradyne (North Reading, Mass.) posted second quarter sales of $455 million, up 38 percent from the previous quarter and up 168 percent from the year-ago quarter. The company posted a net income in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) of $133.7 million, or 55 cents per diluted share, up 144 percent from the previous quarter. Teradyne posted a net loss of $66.8 million in the year-ago quarter.

On a non-GAAP basis, Teradyne’s net income in the second quarter was $133.7 million, or 69 cents per diluted share, the company said.

Consensus analyst expectations called for Teradyne to report second quarter revenue of $408 million with a non-GAAP net income of 47 cents per share, according to Yahoo Finance.

Bookings in the second quarter were $512 million, of which $466 million came from the company's Semiconductor Test business and $46 million from its Systems Test group, Teradyne said.

"We delivered our highest earnings in a decade in the second quarter driven by continued revenue and order growth in Semiconductor Test, and are poised to surpass that mark in the third quarter," said Mike Bradley, Teradyne president and CEO, in a statement.

Teradyne said it expects to report revenue for the third quarter of between $490 million and $520 million, with a GAAP net income per diluted share of 60 to 67 cents.

Axcelis (Beverly, Mass.) posted revenue of $58.2 million for the quarter ended June 30, up 20 percent from the same period of 2009. The company posted a net loss for the period of $4.5 million or 4 cents per share, narrowed from a net loss of $11.1 million or 11 cents per share in the same period of 2009.

Mary Puma, Axcelis chairman and CEO, said in a statement that the company had a much improved second quarter. "We are seeing growing demand from both new and existing customers for our high current product line due to significant productivity and device performance advantages the Optima HDx system provides," Puma said. "We expect this to translate into market share gains in 2010 and beyond."