‘Early Innings’ of 'Huge' Chips Demand Spike: Applied CEO

Chip demand is “much more pervasive than we've ever seen” and “we're really in the early innings of this huge demand acceleration,” Applied Materials CEO Gary Dickerson told a Bernstein virtual conference Wednesday. The company supplies semiconductor production equipment to chipmakers and OLED vapor-deposition products and services to Chinese panel makers, Customers are talking about “big multiyear investments” in “longer-term supply assurance” contracts, more “than I've ever heard before,” he said. “I really see a rethinking of the whole supply chain, and people are understanding that you can't respond in a matter of weeks or months relative to building capacity.” People in the supply chain “are understanding this just-in-time type of a mindset is not going to work,” he said.