UPDATE 2-Ultratech posts surprise quarterly profit

* Sees sequential growth in Q4

* Sees 2010 revenue up about 20 pct

* Q3 EPS $0.04 vs loss estimates of $0.01/shr

* Q3 sales $24.9 mln vs est $20.1 mln

* Share down more than a percent (Adds outlook from conference call, updates share price)

Oct 15 (Reuters) - Ultratech Inc (UTEK.O) posted a surprise quarterly profit on higher demand for its chip-packaging products and expects fourth-quarter results to be up sequentially.

The semiconductor equipment maker also sees a 20 percent growth in revenue for 2010.

The news helped Ultratech shares, which were down 5 percent after the results on a larger sell-off among semiconductor stocks, to pare most of their losses and trade down 1 percent.

Chip stocks were down because of the high expectations that were created after Intel's strong results and outlook on Tuesday.

The company said on a conference call that Asia-Pacific accounted for roughly 82 percent of its total revenue and that its top five customers for chip-packaging products were from the region.

It plans to tap the region further by building a facility in Singapore, which is expected to be completed in the first half of 2010.

Ultratech's chip-packaging products are used to manufacture high-volume, low-cost semiconductors for telecommunications and automotive control systems.

For the third quarter ended Oct. 3, net profit was $1.0 million, or 4 cents a share, compared with $3.3 million, or 14 cents a share, in the prior-year period.

Total net sales fell about 28 percent to $24.9 million.

Analysts on average were expecting a loss of 1 cent a share, before items, on revenue of $20.1 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The company's third-quarter gross margins jumped 12 percent to 50 percent sequentially and it expects fourth-quarter margins to be largely in line with these levels.

Shares of San Jose, California-based Ultratech, whose customers include Intel Corp (INTC.O), were down 26 cents at $15.18 Thursday on Nasdaq. (Reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed in Bangalore; Editing by Deepak Kannan and Anil D'Silva)