Financial Astrology of Novellus Systems, Inc.

FINANCIAL ASTROLOGY

First Trade Date for Novellus Systems, Inc.

Company Name	First Trade Date (yyyy-mm-dd)
Novellus Systems, Inc.	1988-08-11

Company Name	Symbol
Novellus Systems, Inc.	NVLS
History and Business of Company (this information may include date of incorporation)
Novellus Systems, Inc., a California corporation organized in 1984, develops, manufactures, sells and supports systems used in the fabrication of integrated circuits. The customers for these products are manufacturers of semiconductor integrated circuits, or chips, who either incorporate the chips they manufacture in their own products or sell them to other companies for use in electronic products. Integrated circuits are generally built on a silicon wafer base and include a large number of different components, such as transistors, capacitors and other electronic devices that are connected by multiple layers of wiring, or interconnects. To build an integrated circuit, transistors are first created on the surface of the silicon wafer. The wiring and insulating structures are then added as multiple thin-film layers through a series of manufacturing process steps. Typically, a first layer of dielectric (insulating) material is deposited on top of the formed transistors. Subsequent layers of metal (historically, aluminum) are formed on top of this base layer, etched to create the conductive lines that carry the electricity, and then filled with dielectric material to create the necessary insulators between the lines, in a manufacturing process called subtractive aluminum. When copper wires are being constructed, the manufacturing process, called copper damascene, is a mirror image of that described above: the insulator (dielectric) is etched, and the copper wiring is created in the etched insulator via a high-technology electroplating process called electrochemical deposition. Building either copper or aluminum wiring requires these manufacturing steps to be repeated many times; advanced chip designs may require as many as 500 process steps. Novellus has historically focused on a single segment of the chipmaking process, the deposition of conducting and insulating material films. Novellus' advanced deposition systems use chemical vapor deposition (CVD), physical vapor deposition (PVD), and electrochemical deposition (ECD) processes to form the interconnects in the device structure. Our High-Density Plasma CVD (HDP) and Plasma-Enhanced CVD (PECVD) systems employ a chemical plasma to deposit all of the dielectric or insulating layers and some of the metal or conductive layers on the surface of a semiconductor wafer. Our PVD systems use direct-current power to deposit conductive metal layers by sputtering metallic atoms from the surface of a target source. Our Electrofill (ECD) systems are used for depositing conductive layers of copper on wafers in a damascene manufacturing process. In 2001, Novellus expanded beyond deposition technologies into the area of wafer surface preparation when we acquired GaSonics International Corporation, a manufacturer of systems used to clean and prepare a wafer surface after the manufacturing steps that precede deposition. We also acquired SpeedFam-IPEC, Inc., a manufacturer of chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) products in 2002. As the semiconductor industry migrates to the use of copper and low-k (low-capacitance) dielectrics in semiconductors, the manufacturing steps for surface preparation and CMP are becoming increasingly important. Our headquarters are located at 4000 North First Street, San Jose, California 95134 and our telephone number is (408) 943-9700. Additional information about Novellus is available on our web site at www.novellus.com. We make available free of charge on our web site our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and our Current Reports on Form 8-K, as well as amendments to those Reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These reports are available as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file them with - or furnish them to - the Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC. Information contained on our web site is not part of this Annual Report on Form 10-K or of our other filings with the SEC.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: By reading any of the material on this website you agree to our DISCLAIMER: The Magi Society, Magi Astrologers Worldwide Corporation make no claims whatsoever concerning the validity of the information provided herein, and will not be held liable for any use thereof. No information or opinion expressed here is a solicitation to buy or sell securities, bonds, real estate, commodities, options, futures or any financial instruments whatsoever.