KLA doubles market share
The Information Network says the top three semiconductor metrology and inspection equipment vendors increased their collective share of the overall global market to 71 percent in 2012.
This is up from 69.6 percent in 2010, according to the report "Metrology, Inspection, and Process Control in VLSI Manufacturing," by the market analyst firm.
"In reality the 2012 market share gain is a continuation of a trend that abruptly stopped in 2009 following the downturn in the global economy," notes Robert Castellano, president of The Information Network. "While unclear, I surmise that semiconductor manufacturers were able to secure lower costs from smaller process control companies that needed sales to survive."
The chart below shows the 11 year trend.
The top three metrology/inspection suppliers were KLA-Tencor, Hitachi High Tech, and Applied Materials.
The chart below shows the market share for each of the three companies from 2007 "“ 2012. For 2012, Applied Materials lost share to both KLA-Tencor and Hitachi High-Tech.
The three companies compete directly in only three sectors of the metrology/inspection market, and separately each company lead one of these sectors:
"In reality the 2012 market share gain is a continuation of a trend that abruptly stopped in 2009 following the downturn in the global economy," notes Robert Castellano, president of The Information Network. "While unclear, I surmise that semiconductor manufacturers were able to secure lower costs from smaller process control companies that needed sales to survive."
In 2012, Hitachi High Tech led the CD-SEM inspection market with a 66.3 percent share, KLA-Tencor Wafer Defect Inspection led the market with a 56.5 percent share and Applied Materials led the SEM Defect Review with a 50.6percent share.Market shares are dynamic.
Applied Materials' share of the SEM Defect Review market dropped from 60.9 percent in 2011 to 50.6 percent share in 2012, losing share to KLA-Tencor, whose share increased from 11.3 percent in 2011 to 22.7 percent share in 2012.
"For 2013, we expect Applied Materials to gain market share in the metrology/inspection market given the vendetta of CEO/President Gary Dickerson has toward KLA-Tencor for passing over his promotion to CEO when he worked there," adds Castellano.
"However, we feel that this emphasis on a patterned wafer inspection market of only $1.8 billion, which represents only 6% of the $28 billion wafer processing equipment market, will negatively impact Applied's share in its deposition/etch markets against a combined Lam Research/Novellus powerhouse."
