应用材料公司研究报告

RatingBuy Company Date 9April 2026 Applied Materials ReutersAMAT.OQ BloombergAMAT US North AmericaUnited States TMTSemicap Equipment Valuation & Risks Key Takes from the Logic Master Class Melissa WeathersResearch Analyst+1-212-250-2134 Earlier today, AMAT hosted another one of its master class teach-ins to familiarizeinvestors with its logic tool portfolio, introduce new deposition products(Precision™Selective Nitride PECVD System and Trillium™ALD System),and to broadly discusskey inflections and trends in the WFE market. The bulk of the presentation revolvedaroundthe transition to Gate-All-Around architectures.GAA offers improvedperformance-per-watt compared to FinFET, with a 20% increase in area density, 20%increasein performance,and 30%reduction in power consumption.From anengineering standpoint, GAA channels are stacked horizontal nanosheets with 4-sidesgate control, which makes them much more complex to manufacture than FinFET'svertical fins with 3-sides gate control (GAA transistors involve over 500 steps).Naturally, this results in several new challenges on the manufacturing side, whichAMAT believes it has strong process solutions for. We summarize some of theseproducts and the pain points they address below: Apoorva KumarResearch Associate+1-212-250-9286 Ross SeymoreResearch Analyst+1-415-617-3268 ▪AMAT’s Sym3™Z Magnum™: One of the key processes in fabricating a GAAtransistor is shallow trench isolation (STI), which is a process meant toprevent electric charge leakages between adjacent transistors. AMAT’sSym3™Z Magnum™addresses this issue by etching an isolation trench andthen filling it with insulating silicon oxide materials. The Sym3™also usessomethingcalled pulsed voltage technology(PVT)to ensure that thesource/drain cavities are rectangular with flat bottoms as non-uniform gatelengths can increase performance variability in the transistor. ▪Centura™Xtera™: AMAT’s Centura is an epitaxy system that enables uniformgrowth during the formation of the source/drain. Simply put, the toolprevents growth in unwanted areas, creating the ideal film needed to carrycurrent in the transistor. AMAT also uses its PROVision 10 eBeam Metrologysystem alongside its Centura system (the company refers to this as co-optimizing) to optimize film uniformity. ▪Producer™Viva™Radical Treatment:Nanosheets in GAA transistorarchitectures demand exceptionally smooth nanosheet surfaces in order tofunction properly; Any slight roughness or impurities on the surface candegrade carrier mobility and reduce overall transistor speeds. The Vivatreatment system addresses just this by reducing electron scattering andincreasing channel mobility, resulting in faster transistors. The company also highlighted opportunities on the wiring side, citing that advancedAI chips feature over 20 layers of stacked copper interconnects, totalling over 2,000miles of wiring, connecting over 300 billion transistors. However, the increase in wiring(specifically thinner wiring) has also driven resistance higher and this is the primaryreason as to why chips overheat (via resistance increases >10x as you go from 10nm to 3nm nodes). To address these thermal issues, AMAT introduced its Endura™CopperBarrier Seed (CuBS) IMS™system, which creates a selective ALD barrier that enableslow-resistance metal-to-metal contact. DB Take: Wired for Growth Overall, we appreciate AMAT’s efforts to educate investors on highly specializedengineering topics, and believe the event offered helpful insights into the upcomingdynamics driving WFE in the logic space. We believe AMAT’s already-strong marketshare will be complemented/fortified by the introduction of its new tools, helping thecompany to expand its leverage to the fastest growing parts of the WFE market (e.g.,leading-edge F/L, DRAM/HBM, and advanced packaging). We were also particularlyintriguedto hear AMAT highlight its leading market share position in the multibillion-dollar market of materials modification (DBe $4.6b in 2025). We believe this part ofthe WFE market has been relatively underappreciated even though it is critical todriving better transistor performance and higher speeds in upcoming nodes. As such,we believe today’s master class should bring more awareness to the topic and we seeAMAT’s incumbent position as a net positive. Finally, we would again call out AMAT’scommentary on the mix of the WFE market (in line with its commentary from SPIE2026; see our notehere).The company now expects WFE growth to be primarilydriven by fast growing trends in leading edge logic, DRAM, and advanced packaging,offsetting more tepid growth in NAND/ICAPS (a notable departure from the co's prioroutlook for WFE to be 1/3 leadingedge, 1/3 ICAPS, 1/3 memory). All told, we believeAMAT’s presentation today reinforces our bull thesis on AMAT shares, and wecontinue to view it as a well-positioned large-cap equipment name at a relativelyattractive valuation. Reiterate Buy-rating. Appendix 1 Important Disclosures