Global semi-conductor chip sales have risen in the past couple of months, but they are still well below year-ago sales -- and for Applied Materials (AMAT), a company that produces the equipment to make semiconductor chips, solar panels and television screens, this means it will have to adapt.

“In those businesses, we are starting to see order pickup as thing bottom out,” Applied Materials CEO Michael Splinter said. “Most of that order pickup is to develop new technologies and get to the next generation of technologies. 

"Those are the products we will see first," Splinter continued. "About four years ago, Applied Materials moved into new businesses like solar, which needed great technology and scale.”

Splinter said the recent China stimulus is creating a pickup in the industry and orders, and revenue will be flat in this quarter, reflective of things starting to stabilize. He thinks the economy is nearing the bottom and people are marginally more positive.