Corporate

Repeated over and over during the 8th Annual CEO Business Climate Summit were two important topics for the future success of high tech companies in California — an educated workforce and innovation.Applied Materials chairman and CEO, Mike Splinter (left), Facebook chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg (second from left), Governor of the State of California, Jerry Brown (center), and SunPower CEO, Tom Werner (second from right), joined a panel discussion moderated by Barbara Marshman (right), editorial page editor at the San Jose Mercury News, to exchange ideas on how to strengthen California’s economy and business climate.

Today we're announcing a new initiative to identify and invest in early-stage, privately-held Chinese companies with promising technologies that can advance or complement the company’s core expertise, particularly in the areas of cleantech, display and semiconductor manufacturing.

Mike Splinter, Applied Materials chairman and CEO, discusses on CNBC Squawk Box the company’s business in Japan, solar and semiconductor technology and the future of innovation.

<<New information regarding Applied's support for relief efforts in 6th paragraph>>

Investor's Business Daily interviews Applied Materials' Charlie Gay on how the company is managing for success with its diversication into the solar business and focus on crystalline silicon solar, and just how far the solar industry has come in 30 years. 

Applied Materials moved up a spot and ranked third behind Intel and Texas Instruments in the ‘semiconductor’ industry on the Most Admired companies list and received an overall score of 6.78. Applied Materials has been on FORTUNE's Most Admired companies list since 1998. The full list is available on FORTUNE’s web site.Per FORTUNE's web site, companies are rated by executives, directors, and analysts in their own industry on nine criteria, from innovation and global competitiveness to social responsibility.

 The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Technology Review announced today that Applied Materials placed on the 2011 TR50, their second annual list of the 50 most innovative companies in the world.

Innovation is the heart of Applied Materials.  One way to gauge the strength of our innovation engine is by looking at the number of new patents that we receive each year.  According to data compiled by IFI Claims Patent Services, a division of Fairview Research LLC that analyzes patent data, Applied was one of America's top patent recipients.  Applied was among an elite group of companies including Intel Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., Oracle Corp.