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.
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. While, 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 advanced laser cleaning technologies for semiconductor wafers, in a purchase business combination for $21 million in cash.
In January of 2008, Applied Materials purchased an Italian company Baccini, a designer of advanced 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.
Applied Materials' acquisition of Semitool Inc. was completed in December 2009.
Applied Materials announced its acquisition of Varian Semiconductor in May 2011.
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