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News Article

Metrology and Inspection might need encouragement

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Semiconductor metrology/inspection equipment market underperformed for second year in a row says The Information Network
The semiconductor metrology/inspection equipment market grew only 7.2% in 2007, compared to a growth of 11% for the front end wafer processing equipment market, according to the report “Metrology, Inspection, and Process Control in VLSI Manufacturing”, recently published by The Information Network. “As we move into the 65nm and 45nm technology nodes, one would think that more money would be spent on metrology/inspection tools as a ratio of overall equipment buys,” noted Dr. Robert Castellano, president of The Information Network. “However, for both 2006 and 2007, the Semiconductor Metrology/Inspection market underperformed the overall semiconductor front end wafer processing equipment market. 2006 was a disaster but 2007 was still bad.” Historically, sales of process control tools have mirrored sales of the entire front end equipment market, with the average spread only 2.4% for the previous 12 years. In 2006, metrology/inspection revenues grew 13.2% compared to 28% for the total front end equipment sector. In 2007, metrology/inspection revenues grew 7.2% compared to 11% for the total front end equipment sector. KLA-Tencor continued to dominate the market with a 50.5% share, followed by Hitachi and Applied Materials, whose combined revenues only totaled half of KLA-Tencor’s. In the top 10, Nanometrics grew the most, from a 1.8% share to a 2.5% share. Rudolph Technologies dropped the most, from a 3.5% share to a 2.1% share. The high flying macro defect inspection sector, which had seen growth rates of 63% in 2005 and 26% in 2006, dropped 11.5% in 2007, the greatest of all sectors. “For 2008, we project the metrology/inspection market to experience a drop in revenues of 11%, in tandem with the total front end market, which will drop 15%,” added Dr. Castellano.
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