NEW YORK (Standard&Poor's) May 5, 2011--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that it assigned its 'BB+' rating to Fremont, Calif.-based Lam Research Corp.'s (BB+/Positive/--) aggregate issuance of up to $800 million senior unsecured convertible notes. We also assigned a recovery rating of '3' to the debt, indicating our expectation for meaningful (50%-70%) recovery of principal in the event of default. Although the estimated numerical recovery is in the 90%-100% range, we have capped the recovery rating at '3' because of the recovery rating cap on unsecured debt of issuers in the 'BB' category. (See the criteria research report "Criteria Guidelines For Recovery Ratings On Global Industrials Issuers' Speculative-Grade Debt," published Aug. 10, 2009, on RatingsDirect.) The company
