American Power Act

Applied Materials’ chief financial officer, George Davis, met with Sens. Kerry (D-MA) and Lieberman (I-CT) today to discuss what is required to address the world’s energy and environmental challenges.Read more

Despite the ongoing tragedy in the Gulf, there is still a glimmer of hope to be found amid the devastating oil spill: real attention is finally being paid to the need for a clean energy transition, and at the highest levels of government no less. In a speech delivered at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh last Wednesday, President Obama reiterated his appeal to Congress to pass a climate change bill this year.Read more

Below is the extended version of an Op-Ed by Applied Materials chairman and CEO Mike Splinter which was published in Dow Jones today:

In 1960 the semiconductor industry was in its infancy. The first integrated circuits contained just a few transistors and the production costs were about $1,000 per circuit in 1960 dollars.  The only viable applications for this early technology were two programs, the Minuteman missile and the Apollo space program. And these programs bought nearly every circuit produced between 1960 and 1963.

The result of this early market creation by these government programs was that the cost per circuit dropped to an astonishing 98 percent to $25 by 1963 -- and an industry was born. This year, the world will produce about a quintillion transistors or one to the 18th power and the semiconductor industry will generate about $300 billion in revenue. As for the cost per transistor – today’s $200 MP3 player produced in 1975 would have cost about $3 billion.

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