Semiconductor Stocks In News: Applied Materials (NASDAQ:AMAT), Cree (NASDAQ:CREE), KLA-Tencor Corporation (NASDAQ:KLAC), Synopsys (NASDAQ:SNPS), Veeco Instruments (NASDAQ:VECO)

On June 30, Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT) announced the Applied Varian VIISta 900 3D system, the industry’s state-of-the-art medium-current ion implantation tool developed for manufacturing FinFET and 3D NAND designs at sub-2x nanometer nodes. This system features innovations in precision materials engineering that deliver unprecedented levels of control needed to improve device performance, reduce variability, and boost yields of increasingly complex high-performance, high density 3D devices. Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT)’s stock traded beginning with a price of $22.69 and throughout the trading session climbed to $22.91 and later when day-trade ended the stock finally closed at $22.66. Stock showed weekly performance of -0.35%.

Cree (NASDAQ:CREE) was upgraded by Zacks from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating in a note issued to investors on Tuesday. The firm currently has a $49.60 price target on the stock. Zacks‘s price target would indicate a potential upside of 2.08% from the stock’s previous close. Cree, Inc. (NASDAQ:CREE) on last trade day closed at $50.35. Stock institutional ownership is 87.30% while insider ownership included 0.90%. In its share capital CERE has 121.94 million outstanding shares among them 120.02 million shares have been floated in market.

KLA-Tencor Corporation (NASDAQ:KLAC) gapped open higher Monday and climbed during the first 2 hours of trade, before settling into a range. KLA-Tencor has been on an upward trend for the past month and a half. The stock broke out past resistance Monday and set a new high for the year. KLA-Tencor Corporation (NASDAQ:KLAC)’s stock in last trading day held average volume of 1.15 million shares. Shares after opening at $72.73 on last trading day attained maximum price of $73.59 and then ended up on $73.07 by increasing 0.59%.

On June 30, 2014, Synopsys, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNPS) announced a collaboration to advance the modeling of negative bias temperature instability (NBTI), a key reliability concern for advanced CMOS devices. NBTI has become more critical with the introduction of high-k metal gate (HKMG) processes and is a dominant reliability concern for FinFET devices, contributing to the degradation of threshold voltage, current, transconductance and other electrical parameters. This collaboration will enable leading semiconductor manufacturers to gain insight into NBTI degradation and develop methods to mitigate its effects on FinFETs at the 14-nanometer (nm) node and beyond. Synopsys, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNPS)’s stock on July 1, 2014 reported an increase of 0.77% to the closing price of $39.12. Its fifty two weeks range was $34.55 -$41.62. The total market capitalization recorded $6.05 billion. The average overall volume in the last trading session was 578,488.00 shares. In its share capital, company has 154.73 million outstanding shares.

Berenberg Bank reiterated their buy rating on shares of Veeco Instruments (NASDAQ:VECO) in a research report sent to investors on Friday morning. The firm currently has a $41.00 price target on the stock, down from their previous price target of $46.00. Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:VECO) stock hit highest price at $38.03 on last trade day, beginning with a price of $37.28 and closed at $37.21 with day range of $37.01 – $38.03. The total market capitalization of the stock is $1.49 billion; total average volume held in the session was 502,376.00 shares.