The pace of both the recovery in the semiconductor equipment industry and the crossover to 300-millimeter tool sets required us to restructure the company in the third quarter.

Communications equipment makers were by far the worst. The semiconductor guys were horrible, and hardware makers had a tough time. But software earnings were only down modestly. The software business will do reasonably well even in a lousy environment.

The semiconductor industry is very, very cyclical; and when things are good - which they are now - they're always better than were expected. Of course, when things turn down, they always hit harder than anybody would have guessed. And right now what's happening on Wall Street is a lot of people are trying to kind of guess the top: are we there yet? There's really no way to tell.

within a millimeter of perfect.

The semiconductor industry has few equals when it comes to resource conservation and minimizing its environmental impact. Through these and other activities, ISMI will continue to work in that tradition.

This report is stronger than it looks and is consistent with the industrial recovery gathering pace,