Fremont semiconductor capital equipment maker Lam Research Corp is to pay $225m in shares for OnTrak Systems Inc. Lam will trade 0.83 of its shares for each OnTrak share and option outstanding, and says it wants the company to fill out its product line. OnTrak, San Jose makes chemical mechanical planarization machines used to polish silicon wafers preparatory to laying down the features on the chip, and to clean and polish the surface of each layer as it is laid down. Lam reckons that that segment is growing at 31% a year, but it also gets a new chief executive in the shape of James Bagley, the executive who helped Applied Materials Inc, the biggest semiconductor manufacturing equipment company to soar to annual sales of $4bn from just $70m when he joined: Bagley will take over as chief executive of Lam. Separately, Lam warned that it expects to report a loss of $1.40 a share for the fiscal third quarter because of a $10m to $15m sales shortfall and a write-down of old inventory. Wall Street analysts had been expecting Lam to make a $0.07 a share profit for the period.
