Applied Materials Continues Leadership in Flat Panel CVD With Shipment of 500th AKT PECVD System

Business Wire, June 2, 2006

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Applied Materials, Inc. (Nasdaq:AMAT) announces the shipment of its 500th AKT PECVD(1) system, a significant milestone for flat panel display (FPD) CVD technology. This system is being installed at a customer's fab in China where it will be used to manufacture TFT-LCD(2) monitors and televisions. Applied Materials' FPD systems are developed and sold through its wholly-owned subsidiary, AKT, Inc., the world's leading supplier of PECVD systems to the flat panel display (FPD) industry. Applied's PECVD systems are used by virtually every major TFT-LCD manufacturer in Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China. E[acute accent]"Applied Materials' PECVD systems help customers reduce LCD-TV costs by delivering enabling technology that provides a winning combination of high productivity and high yield," said Wendell Blonigan, vice president of Applied Materials and president of AKT. "Each of these 500 PECVD systems, from the first generation to today's latest Gen-8 tools, has been designed with customers' profitability as our primary goal." E[acute accent]Applied's AKT FPD products span all of the manufacturing generations used for LCDs. The 500th system, an AKT-15K PECVD designed for Generation 5 fabs manufacturing smaller displays, demonstrates the broad range of systems that customers continue to buy for both new fabs and existing fab line upgrades. The company's latest FPD CVD system is the AKT-50K PECVD for manufacturing Generation 8 TFT-LCD panels. Using glass substrates approximately 2.2 meters x 2.4 meters in size, the AKT-50K system helps customers cost-effectively produce up to six 52-inch flat panel television screens per substrate. E[acute accent]All AKT PECVD systems use the field-proven, multi-chamber platform architecture and technology that have made them the industry leader in CVD equipment for the past 13 years. The systems can deposit a range of single-layer or in situ multi-layer films of doped and undoped amorphous silicon (a-Si), silicon oxide (SiOx), silicon oxynitride (SiON) and silicon nitride (SiNx).

E[acute accent]Applied Materials, Inc. (Nasdaq:AMAT) is the global leader in nanomanufacturing technology(TM) solutions for the electronics industry with a broad portfolio of innovative equipment, service and software products. At Applied Materials, we apply nanomanufacturing technology to improve the way people live. Learn more at www.appliedmaterials.com.

E[acute accent](1) PECVD = plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition

E[acute accent](2) TFT-LCD = thin film transistor - liquid crystal display