Posted By: Technology Staff Editor In: Information Technology written by Dylan McGrath, courtesy of EE Times
SAN FRANCISCO—Semiconductor manufacturing equipment vendor Axcelis Technologies Inc. said Wednesday (May 20) it has cut about 235 jobs, or 20 percent of its global workforce, since the end of 2008.
Previous cost saving actions announced by Axcelis (Beverly, Mass.) included furloughs, plant shutdowns and layoffs. Last October the company cut about 200 positions, or roughly 14 percent of its workforce at the time.
But given the severity of the downturn the company decided the additional layoffs were needed "to better align operating costs with near term revenue expectations," the company said.
The reductions are estimated to save the company about $25 million per year, said Axcelis, which provides ion implementation and cleaning equipment. The company expects to record restructuring charges in the range of $5 million to $6 million during the second quarter of 2009.
"This is a difficult but necessary decision due to the continued weakness in the semiconductor industry," said Mary Puma, Axcelis chairman and CEO, in a statement.
Earlier this month Axcelis said Puma had agreed to take a 20 percent salary cut amid ongoing losses for the fab tool firm.
The company reported first quarter revenue of $25.7 million, down from $42 million for the fourth quarter of 2008. Net loss for the first quarter was $29.2 million, or 28 cents per share, compared to a net loss for the fourth quarter of 2008 of $141.4 million, or $1.37 per share.
Comments
Posted by: David Lovering
I would anticipate a similar down-turn in all U.S. based IC-manufacturing equipment suppliers, if for no other reason that overseas chip manufacturers are turning more and more to their own native suppliers for such resources. Despite the downturn in the U.S. economy, the price-structures for high-end equipment haven't dropped precipitously, and in some cases may have actually increased. Whether this is due to exchange rates, diminished demand forcing prices, or some other variable it does not bode well for the industry as a whole.What I would expect is a jump in demand for field-programmable gate-array and similar technologies which provide a great deal more "reusability" than fixed-mask chipsets.The economical nature of dynamically reconfigurable components never used to be a dominant factor in the marketplace, but now that electronics manufacturers are pinching pennies at every turn I would expect this feature to become of ever greater importance.
