Axcelis Q2 revenue beats forecast, raises full-year outlook

Disco Corporation reported preliminary non-consolidated sales of ¥118.5 billion for the quarter ended September 2026, up from ¥85.3 billion a year earlier, with first-half sales of ¥213.6 billion versus ¥160.8 billion in the prior-year period. The semiconductor equipment maker also received a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) after analysts steadily raised earnings estimates over the past three months. The preliminary figures came in comfortably above the prior year and ahead of earlier non-consolidated guidance, reinforcing the near-term earnings story. The company continues to flag volatile semiconductor and electronic components demand, leaving cyclicality risk embedded in its investment case. Two fair value views in the Simply Wall St Community on Disco span roughly ¥25,000 to ¥81,000.

Applied Materials announced that the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering will join its EPIC Center in Silicon Valley as a research partner, with researchers working alongside Applied's scientists and engineers to shorten the time it takes to move semiconductor breakthroughs from research to commercialization. The collaboration will focus on 3D chip scaling, advanced packaging and the discovery of new materials for improving energy-efficient AI compute performance, and will complement UCLA's Semiconductor Hub, which Applied joined as a co-founding member earlier this year. Dr. Prabu Raja, President of the Semiconductor Products Group at Applied Materials, said the EPIC Center will convene the industry's top innovators to accelerate the path from breakthrough research to full-scale manufacturing, while Ah-Hyung "Alissa" Park, Ronald and Valerie Sugar Dean of UCLA Samueli, said the collaboration builds on the school's legacy of pioneering semiconductor research. UCLA researchers will gain access to advanced chipmaking tools so new ideas can be validated and tested in a commercial fab environment. Applied's EPIC Center, which the company describes as the largest-ever U.S. investment in advanced semiconductor equipment R&D, is on track to become operational in 2026.

Applied Materials now expects its Applied Global Services business to grow more than 20% in 2026 and to maintain a sustainable long-term annual growth rate in the mid-teens. In the third quarter of fiscal 2026, AGS revenues reached a record $1.78 billion, up 22% year over year, while non-GAAP operating margin rose to 30.1% from 27.3%. More than 37,000 chambers are connected to AIx software for monitoring, diagnostics and predictive analytics, and the company added more than 1,500 manufacturing and AGS support employees in the quarter as it plans to double quarterly system output from current levels by 2028. China represented 28% of total revenues in the third quarter of fiscal 2026, up from 27% in the second quarter, and Applied Materials now expects China revenues to increase in 2026, led by 28-nanometer foundry-logic investment. Applied Materials expects non-GAAP earnings of $4.02 per share, plus or minus 20 cents, indicating 85% year-over-year growth at the midpoint, while the Zacks Consensus Estimate suggests growth of 87%.

KLA has been upgraded to a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), a rating that places the semiconductor equipment maker in the top 20% of the more than 4,000 stocks covered by the Zacks Rank system. The upgrade reflects an upward trend in earnings estimates, with the Zacks Consensus Estimate for KLA rising 9% over the past three months. The company is expected to earn $5.44 per share for the fiscal year ending June 2027, which represents no year-over-year change. Zacks said the rating change is essentially a positive comment on KLA's earnings outlook that could have a favorable impact on its stock price. Under the Zacks system, only the top 5% of covered stocks receive a Strong Buy rating and the next 15% receive a Buy rating.

SUSS MicroTec SE has entered the wafer-level cleaning market with the launch of its new GreenTec Solutions product line and its first system, the GT200. The company said the wafer-cleaning market it is targeting represents an addressable market of approximately EUR 5.4 billion, driven by advanced packaging, heterogeneous integration and rising semiconductor demand from AI and high-performance computing. The GT200 is designed for research and development, process qualification and production in 200 mm manufacturing environments for MEMS, RF, Power Device and CMOS applications, and combines the company's TurbulenStrip and CrustBuster process technologies in a single platform. SUSS said the GT200 is the first member of a scalable GreenTec platform and that it will expand toward high-volume manufacturing with a dedicated 300 mm HVM platform in 2027, pulled in from its original schedule due to strong customer interest, followed by a 200 mm HVM platform in 2028. Chief Executive Officer Burkhardt Frick called the launch an important milestone in the execution of the company's Ambition 2030 strategy, while Senior Vice President Photomask Solutions Yuta Nagai said the product line represents its vision for a next generation of semiconductor manufacturing where sustainability and process excellence go hand in hand.