Japanese Wafer Processing Equipment Makers

Overview

Front-end equipment works on the wafer itself, repeating lithography, etch, deposition and cleaning dozens of times to build transistors and wiring layers. It is the largest part of the equipment market, and Japanese makers are present in almost every step, often as specialists in one process.

The list below includes the large system makers whose tools sit in leading-edge fabs, as well as smaller companies that build mask writers, research-scale lithography and wet-process tools, or equipment for MEMS, power and compound semiconductors.

Companies (26)

• Tokyo Electron (TEL)
  Coat/develop, etch and deposition equipment · HQ: Minato, Tokyo · 44 product pages
• SCREEN Holdings
  Wafer cleaning, coat/develop and inspection equipment · HQ: Kyoto, Kyoto · 26 product pages
• Kokusai Electric
  Batch deposition, diffusion and ALD equipment · HQ: Chiyoda, Tokyo · 10 product pages
• Ebara
  CMP systems, dry vacuum pumps and exhaust treatment · HQ: Ota, Tokyo · 5 product pages
• Canon
  Lithography steppers and nanoimprint lithography · HQ: Ota, Tokyo · 11 product pages
• Nikon
  ArF, KrF and i-line lithography systems · HQ: Shinagawa, Tokyo · 13 product pages
• ULVAC
  Vacuum deposition (sputtering) equipment and vacuum pumps · HQ: Chigasaki, Kanagawa · 25 product pages
• Ushio
  Light sources and exposure systems for packaging · HQ: Chiyoda, Tokyo · 1 product page
• EpiQuest
  Molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) systems · HQ: Kyoto, Kyoto · 1 product page
• Gigaphoton
  Excimer laser light sources for lithography · HQ: Tochigi · 1 product page
• Koyo Thermo Systems (JTEKT Thermo Systems)
  Vertical furnaces · 3 product pages
• Nissin Ion Equipment
  Ion implanters · 2 product pages
• SAMCO
  Plasma etching, CVD and plasma cleaning equipment · HQ: Kyoto, Kyoto · 1 product page
• Shibaura Mechatronics
  Photomask cleaning and carrier cleaning equipment · HQ: Kanagawa · 2 product pages
• Sumitomo Heavy Industries Material Solutions (formerly SMIT)
  Ion implanters · 3 product pages
• NuFlare Technology
  Electron-beam mask writers, mask inspection and epitaxial reactors · HQ: Yokohama, Kanagawa · 1 product page
• Canon ANELVA
  Sputtering and vacuum deposition equipment · HQ: Kawasaki, Kanagawa
• Sumitomo Precision Products
  MEMS and semiconductor manufacturing equipment (deep silicon etching) · HQ: Amagasaki, Hyogo
• Tazmo
  Coater/developers and wafer handling equipment · HQ: Ibara, Okayama · 1 product page
• Elionix
  Electron-beam lithography systems · 1 product page
• ORC Manufacturing
  UV exposure systems for package substrates and printed circuit boards
• Dainippon Kaken
  Mask aligners and maskless exposure systems
• SCIVAX
  Nanoimprint equipment and contract nanoimprint manufacturing · HQ: Kawasaki, Kanagawa
• Litho Tech Japan
  Resist coating, developing and bake equipment; resist evaluation · HQ: Kawaguchi, Saitama
• Dalton
  Wet process equipment: resist stripping, cleaning, drying and plating
• Shinko Seiki
  Vacuum pumps, thin-film deposition, plasma ashing and vacuum soldering equipment · HQ: Kobe, Hyogo

Equipment categories

Product categories where these companies are listed, with the number of companies from this page in each.

• CVD equipment (4)
• DUV lithography systems (4)
• i-line steppers (4)
• Diffusion furnaces (3)
• Medium-current ion implanters (3)
• Coater/developers (2)
• Dry etching equipment (2)
• High-energy ion implanters (2)
• PVD equipment (2)
• Rapid thermal processing (RTP) equipment (2)
• Single-wafer cleaning equipment (2)
• Sputtering equipment (2)
• Vacuum evaporation equipment (2)
• Wafer scrubbers (2)
• ALD equipment (1)
• Batch wafer cleaning equipment (1)
• Dry cleaning equipment (1)
• Ellipsometers (1)
• Film thickness metrology (1)
• Macro inspection equipment (1)
• Mask dimension and flatness metrology (1)
• MEMS manufacturing equipment (1)
• PECVD equipment (1)
• Power semiconductor manufacturing equipment (1)
• TSV formation equipment (1)
• Wafer probers (1)
• Wafer-level packaging equipment (1)
• Wet etching equipment (1)

Related reading

• Where Japanese equipment makers lead
• Semiconductor equipment market by region
• Coater/developer

Other equipment sectors: Inspection and metrology · Wafer manufacturing equipment · Back-end and packaging equipment · Test and reliability equipment · Equipment components · Fab infrastructure

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