Applied Materials makes the equipment that semiconductor manufacturers use to build chips. Applied's tools perform the core physical and chemical processes inside a fab — depositing materials, etching patterns, and inspecting results at the atomic scale. Customers include major foundries, memory makers, and integrated device manufacturers (IDMs), who buy Applied's equipment for use across leading-edge logic, DRAM, NAND flash, and mature-node (ICAPS) applications. Applied sells almost entirely through a direct sales force given the technical complexity of its products. Applied operates two main segments. Semiconductor Systems (~73% of revenue) sells capital equipment — deposition, etch, patterning, metrology, inspection, and advanced packaging tools — to chip manufacturers. Applied Global Services, or AGS (~22% of revenue), sells services, spare parts, and factory automation software to support Applied's large installed base; more than two-thirds of AGS revenue is subscription-based, making it highly recurring. A small display equipment business rounds out the portfolio. Equipment revenue is cyclical, driven by global fab construction and upgrade spending. Applied's strategy focuses on winning critical process steps at major technology inflections — particularly the shift to gate-all-around transistors and backside power delivery in leading-edge logic, advanced DRAM, high-bandwidth memory (HBM) for AI servers, and advanced packaging. Applied argues its broad portfolio across multiple process steps lets it offer co-optimized integrated systems that narrower competitors cannot match. A key risk is U.S. export restrictions on China, which Applied estimates blocked access to over 20% of China's wafer fab equipment market — a market representing roughly a quarter of Applied's total revenue.