CMP enables IC device manufacturers to produce smaller, faster and more complex IC devices with a greater density of transistors and otherIn our electronic components.  With smaller IC devices, IC device manufacturers can increase the number of IC devices that fit on a wafer, which increases their throughput, or the number of IC devices that can be manufactured in a given time period.  CMP also helps reduce the number of defective or substandard IC devices produced, which increases the device yield.  Producing more complex and higher performing IC devices increases the value of the wafers processed.  Improvements in throughput, yield and value per wafer improve the return on an IC device manufacturer's significant investment in manufacturing capacity, which is a high priority.  More broadly, sustained growth in the semiconductor industry traditionally has been fueled by enhanced performance and lower unit costs, making IC devices more affordable in an expanding range of applications.  We believe CMP remains a critical process in leading-edge semiconductor technology, enabling IC device manufacturers to efficiently produce the complex chips, particularly where higher performance may now be accompanied by higher unit costs.

Our electronic chemicals products include sulfuric, phosphoric, nitric and hydrofluoric acids, ammonium hydroxide, hydrogen peroxide, isopropyl alcohol, other specialty organic solvents and various blends of chemicals. As the IC manufacturing process moves to more advanced technology nodes and the complexity of the process continues to increase, quality and purity of the materials becomes even more critical to the device yield. Increasing levels of purity and achieving lower levels of variation in our electronic chemicals business are required to enable next-generation IC technologies. Our advanced chemical purification technologies, including distillation, ion exchange, gas adsorption, and filtration, are designed to provide consistently low contaminant levels in a variety of polishing tools, over a range of applications, including tungsten, copper, and dielectrics, over a range of technology nodes, and on both 300mm and 200mm wafers.

We believe an example of our ability to deliver innovative products for advanced applications is the growth we saw in revenue in fiscal 2018 from certain of our tungsten and dielectrics slurry products used in 3D memory, and tungsten slurry products for FinFET in advanced logic, as well as growth in revenue from our pads products.  We believe our focused effortalso focus on advanced technologies with technology-leading customers will enable us to provide more compelling new products as technology continues to advance.  In addition, we believe our polishing pads product area represents a promising opportunity for continued growth.  We believe that the combination of pad technology and products from our NexPlanar acquisition with our organic pad technology and products enables us to better serve the needs of our customers on a global basis, including the ability to offer performance-differentiated CMP slurry and pad consumable sets.

We believe we have aanother competitive advantage because of our ability to timely deliver high-quality products and service from the early stages of product development through the high-volume commercial use of our products.  We have strategically located our research and development and clean room facilities, manufacturing operations, and related technical and customer support teams to be responsive to our customers' needs, and believe they provide us with a competitive advantage.

Over a number ofthe past several years, we have seen ourconsolidation in the customer base within the semiconductor industry consolidate as larger semiconductor manufacturers have generally grown faster than the smaller ones, through mergers and acquisitions as well as through alliances among and between different companies.industry. Costs to achieve the required scale in manufacturing within the semiconductor industry continue to rise, along with the related costs of research and development, and larger manufacturers generally have greater access to the resources necessary to manage their businesses, than do smaller ones.  This trend is particularly evident in capital spending within the industry, as the largest semiconductor companies account for an increasingly large portion of total capital spending in the industry compared to the past.

As demand for more advanced and lower cost electronic devices grows, there is continuedongoing pressure on IC device manufacturers to reduce their costs. Manufacturers have historically reduced cost and simultaneously improved device performance by migrating to smaller technology nodes. To achieve performance and cost improvements, semiconductor manufacturers are placing greater emphasis on new device architectures, including 3D memory and FinFET. Many manufacturers reduce costs by pursuing ever-increasing scale in their operations, while seeking to reduce their production costs by increasing their production yields regardless of their scale.  Thus, they look for CMP consumables products with quality and performance attributes that can help them reduce their overall cost of ownership, pursue ways to use smaller amounts of CMP materials, and aggressively pursue price reductions for these materials.

Demand for our CMP consumables is primarily driven by wafer starts, so the CMP consumables industryand electronic chemicals products reflects semiconductor industry demand patterns in terms of growth, cyclicality and seasonality, and varying demand for specific device types. We saw stronger demand starting in the second half of fiscal 2016 through fiscal 2018, which was consistentConsistent with other participants in the semiconductor industry.  Our revenue generatedindustry, we experienced relatively stable demand conditions in China and Korea duringour fiscal 2018 increased 30% and 43%, respectively, from fiscal 2017, which is attributable to semiconductor growth in China and overall growth in2020 despite global macroeconomic uncertainty caused by the memory market.Pandemic. Over the long term, we anticipate worldwide demand for CMP consumables and electronic chemicals used by IC device manufacturers willto grow as a result of expected long-term growth in wafer starts, and the trend to more advanced technologies andtechnologies. With respect to CMP consumables, we believe there will continue to be an associated increase in the number of CMP polishing steps required to produce these advanced devices, and the introduction of new materials that are expected to require CMP.

For our electronic chemicals business, there are various competitors with whom we compete in different regions. In North America, these include Honeywell, Kanto Corporation and Avantor. Outside the CMP consumables business.United States (U.S.), other providers in Europe are BASF, Technic and Honeywell, and in Asia, BASF and Kanto Corporation, among others. We believe that the combination of our existing pad technologybusiness in Europe is comparable to other providers, and products with those from our acquisition of NexPlanarother than in 2015 enable us to meet our customers' needs for lower defectivity, greater pad consistency, and longer pad life.  In addition,Singapore, at present we believe that our full array of polishing pads offerings enables us to better serve our customers on a global basis, including our performance-differentiated slurry and pad consumable sets.

Within the semiconductor industry, our customers are generally producers of logic or memory IC devices, or providers of IC foundry services. Some logic customers, and so-called "fabless" companies, outsource some or all of the production of their devices to foundries, which provide contract manufacturing services, in order to avoid the high cost of process development, construction and operation of a fab, or to provide additional capacity when needed.

Our global R&D team includes experts from the semiconductor industry and scientists and engineers from key disciplines required for the development of high-performance CMP consumable products. We operate anCMP consumable product R&D facilityfacilities primarily in Aurora, Illinois, that features a Class 1 clean roomthe U.S., with certain development capabilities in Taiwan and advanced equipmentSouth Korea, in Singapore for data storage, and in Japan for silicon wafer products. We also operate electronic chemicals product development including 300mm polishingfacilities in the U.S., Europe, and metrology capabilities; a facility in Japan, which includes a Class 1 clean room with 300mm polishing, metrology and slurry development capabilities; a facility in Taiwan that includes a clean room with 200mm polishing capability; a facility in South Korea that provides slurry formulation capability and 300mm polishing capability; an R&D laboratory in Singapore that provides polishing, metrology and slurry development capabilities for the data storage industry; and, a research facility in Rochester, New York that supports our QED business.  These facilities underscore our commitment to continuing to invest in our technology infrastructure to maintain our technology leadership and to be responsive to the needs of our customers.

Engineered abrasive particles are significant raw materials we use in many of our CMP slurries. Our strategy is to secure various sources of different raw materials, as appropriate, to enable the desired performance of our products, and monitor those sources as necessary to provide supply assurance. Also, weWe have entered into multi-year supply agreements with a number ofseveral suppliers for the purchase of raw materials in the interest of supply and quality assurance, and to control costs.

We believe our intellectual property is important to our success and ability to compete, and in addition to it, we also differentiate our products and technology by their high quality and reliability, and our quality systems, global supply chain and logistics. As of October 31, 2018,2020, we had 1,3191,301 active worldwide patents, of which 276 are268 U.S. patents, and 410344 pending worldwide patent applications, of which 45 are in the United States.  U.S.

Many of these patents are important to our continued development of new and innovative products for CMP and related processes, as well as for new businesses. Our patents have a range of duration.  We refresh our intellectual property on an ongoing basis through continued innovation.  As an example, we have had patent coverage that was important to some of our legacy business, and continue to have significant other patents that protect this technology and other legacy and advanced technology with a range of duration. We attempt to protect our intellectual property rights through a combination of patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret laws, use of certain manufacturing technologies, exclusive contractual arrangements with suppliers, and with employee and third party-nondisclosure and assignment agreements. We refresh our intellectual property on an ongoing basis through continued innovation. We vigorously protect and defend our intellectual property and have been successful in this regard.

Most of our intellectual property has been developed internally, but we also may acquire intellectual property from others to enhance our intellectual property portfolio. These enhancements may be via licenses or assignments, or we may acquire certain proprietary technology and intellectual property when we make acquisitions. We believe these technology rights can enhance our competitive advantage by providing us with future product development opportunities and expanding our intellectual property portfolio.

We believe our employees are the foundation of our success. Our overall talent acquisition and retention strategy is designed to attract and retain diverse and qualified candidates to meet our performance goals on an ongoing basis and enable the success of the Company.

As of October 31, 2018,September 30, 2020, we employed 1,2192,082 individuals, including 7221,413 in operations, 248252 in research and development and technical, 84417 in sales, general and marketingadministration. Approximately 1,091 of these individuals located in the U.S. and 165approximately 991 of these individuals located outside of the U.S., with 716 in administration.  Asia Pacific, 199 in Europe and 76 in Canada and Mexico. With respect to gender diversity, we believe the percentage of women in our worldwide workforce is at least generally comparable to averages in the chemical and semiconductor industries. Of our Executive Officers 50% identify as female, and 50% identify as male.

In general, our employees are not covered by collective bargaining agreements.agreements, but we do have some workers who are subject to such agreements, part of workers’ councils, or similar arrangements, primarily in Europe, Mexico, and Singapore. We have not experienced any work stoppages and consider our relations withprovide various employee benefits to our employees around the world. Some examples of this are: an employee stock purchase plan, a parental leave program, and a paid time off program to be good.

Our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, definitive proxy statements on Schedule 14A, current reports on Form 8-K, and any amendments to those reports, as well as any other filings with the SEC, including our Form S-4 Registration Statement with respect to our pending acquisition of KMG,Securities and amendments thereto,Exchange Commission (“SEC”), are made available free of charge on our Company website, www.cabotcmp.com,www.cmcmaterials.com, as soon as reasonably practicable after such reports are filed or furnished with the SecuritiesSEC. Our Code of Business Conduct and Exchange Commission (SEC).  Any materials that the Company files with the SECcertain other governance documents are also available to read and copy at the SEC's Public Reference Room at 100 F Street, NE, Washington, DC 20549.  Information on the operation of the Public Reference Room may be obtained by calling the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330.our website, www.cmcmaterials.com. Statements regarding beneficial ownership of our securities by our executive officers and directors are made available on our Company website following the filing of such with the SEC. In addition, the SEC's website (http://www.sec.gov) contains reports, proxy statements, and other information that we file electronically with the SEC.

Protection of intellectual property is particularly important in ourthe semiconductor industry, which is the primary industry in which we participate, because we develop complex technical formulas and processes for CMP products that are proprietary in nature and differentiate our products from those of our competitors. Our intellectual property is important to our success and ability to compete. We attempt to protect our intellectual property rights through a combination of patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret laws, as well as employee and third-party nondisclosure and assignment agreements. In addition, we protect our product differentiation through various other means, such as proprietary supply arrangements for certain raw materials, and use of certain manufacturing technologies. Due to our international operations, we pursue protection in different jurisdictions, which may provide varying degrees of protection, and we cannot provide assurance that we can obtain adequate protection in each such jurisdiction. Our failure to obtain or maintain adequate protection of our intellectual property rights for any reason, including through the patent prosecution process or in the event of litigation related to such intellectual property, which we pursue when necessary to protect our rights against others who are found to be misusing our intellectual property, could seriously harm our business. In addition, certain types of intellectual property, such as patents, expire after a certain period of time, and products protected by our patents then lose such protection, so we refresh our intellectual property portfolio on an ongoing basis through continued innovation, and failure to do so could adversely affect our business. Also, the costs of obtaining or protecting our intellectual property could negatively affect our operating results.

We maintain and rely upon certain critical information systems for the effective operation of our business. These information systems include, but are not limited to, telecommunications, the Internet, our corporate intranet, various computer hardware and software applications, network communications, and email. These information systems may be owned and maintained by us, our outsourced providers, or third parties such as vendors, contractors, and Cloud providers. All of these information systems are subject to disruption, breach or failure from various sources including, but not limited to, attacks, degradation, and failures resulting from potential sources, including viruses, malware, denial of service, destructive or inadequate code, power failures, and physical damage. Confidential and/or sensitive information stored on these information systems, or transmitted to or from Cloud storage, could be intentionally or unintentionally compromised, lost, and/or stolen. While we have implemented security procedures and virus protection software, intrusion prevention systems, access control, and emergency recovery processes to mitigate risks like these with respect to information systems that are under our control, they are not fail-safe and may be subject to breaches. Further, we cannot assure that third parties upon whom we rely for various IT services will maintain sufficient vigilance and controls over their systems. Our inability to use or access these information systems at critical points in time, or unauthorized releases of personal or confidential information, could unfavorably impact the timely and efficient operation of our business, including our results of operations, and our reputation, as well as our relationships with our employees or other individuals whose information may have been affected by such cybersecurity incidents.

In the future we engage in succession planning for our key employees,may be required to raise capital through public or private financing or other arrangements. Such financing may not be available on acceptable terms, or at all, and our Boardfailure to raise capital when needed could harm our business. During the first quarter of Directors reviews succession planningfiscal 2020, the Company amended its credit agreement ("Amended Credit Agreement") to reduce the interest rate on term loan borrowings, under the Senior Secured Term Loan Facility under the Amended Credit Agreement ("Term Loan Facility"). Our Amended Credit Agreement contains financial and other covenants that may restrict our business activities or our ability to execute our strategic objectives, and our failure to comply with these covenants could result in a default under it. Furthermore, additional equity financing may dilute the interests of our common stockholders, and debt financing, if available, may involve restrictive covenants that could further restrict our business activities or our ability to execute our strategic objectives and could reduce our profitability. If we raise or borrow funds on acceptable terms, we may not be able to grow our business or respond to competitive pressures.

In addition, borrowings under our Amended Credit Agreement generally bear interest based on (a) a London Inter-bank Offered Rate (“LIBOR”), subject to a 0.00% floor, or (b) a base rate, in each case plus an applicable margin of, in the case of borrowings under the Term Loan Facility, 2.00% for LIBOR loans and 1.00% for base rate loans and, in the case of borrowings under the Amended Credit Agreement's revolving credit facility ("Revolving Credit Facility"), initially, 1.50% for LIBOR loans and 0.50% for base rate loans. On July 27, 2017, the Financial Conduct Authority (the authority that regulates LIBOR) announced that it intends to stop compelling banks to submit rates for the calculation of LIBOR after 2021. In the U.S., the Alternative Reference Rates Committee, the working group formed to recommend an alternative rate to LIBOR, has identified the Secured Overnight Financing Rate as its preferred alternative rate for USD LIBOR. When LIBOR ceases to exist after 2021, any calculation of interest based upon the Alternate Base Rate (or any comparable or replacement formulation), may result in higher interest rates. To the extent that these interest rates increase, our executive officers, includingInterest expense will increase, which could adversely affect our chief executive officer, on an annual basis.financial condition, operating results and cash flows.

The market price of our common stock has fluctuated and could continue to fluctuate significantly as a result of factors such as: economic, geopolitical, global public health, political and stock market conditions generally and specifically as they may impact participants in the semiconductor and related industries; and/or participants in oil and gas related industries; changes in financial estimates and recommendations by securities analysts who follow our stock; earnings and other announcements, and changes in market evaluations, by securities analysts, investors, market participants or others, of or related to, us or participants in the semiconductor and related industries; changes in business, trade or regulatory conditions affecting us or participants in the semiconductor and related industries; announcements or implementation by us, our competitors, or our customers of technological innovations, new products or different business strategies; changes in our capital deployment strategy, issuances of shares of our capital stock or entering into a business combination or other strategic transaction, such as our pending acquisition of KMG;transaction; and trading volume of our common stock.

Our certificate of incorporation and bylaws, and various provisions of the Delaware General Corporation Law may make it more difficult or expensive to effect a change in control of our Company. For instance, our amended and restated certificate of incorporation provides for the division of our Board of Directors into three classes as nearly equal in size as possible with staggered three-year terms.

We believe that our facilities are suitable and adequate for their intended purpose and provide us with sufficient capacity and capacity expansion opportunities and technological capability to meet our current and expected demand in the foreseeable future. For example, we expandedWe intend to expand certain of our facilities in Hillsboro, Oregon in fiscal 2018 to support future growth.meet our anticipated business needs.

Set forth below is information concerningof our executive officers and their ages as of October 31, 2018.2020.