Aristotle Core Equity Fund on Applied Materials
Thesis
Applied Materials is positioned at the center of semiconductor manufacturing investment tied to AI compute and infrastructure. Aristotle highlights the company's exposure to leading-edge foundry and logic, DRAM and advanced packaging, which account for most expected 2026 wafer-fabrication-equipment growth and where Applied Materials is either leading or gaining share. Major capacity-expansion plans from Samsung and SK Hynix reinforce the fund's expectation for a multi-year increase in global wafer-fabrication-equipment spending.
“The company’s end-market exposure remains well positioned, with 80%+ of 2026 industry wafer fabrication equipment growth expected from leading-edge foundry/logic, dynamic random-access memory and advanced packaging.”