Deep Intelligence Across Industries

HORIBA is a Kyoto-based analytical and measurement group that has become, in economic terms, a semiconductor company. Its Materials & Semiconductor field produced 47% of FY2025 sales (JPY 156.5 billion) and about 84% of operating income (JPY 44.5 billion). It rests on an MFC franchise that HORIBA estimates holds about 60% of the global market. Around that core the group keeps two other fields. Energy & Environment covers emissions and powertrain testing, process and environmental monitoring, and engineering services. Bio & Healthcare covers in-vitro diagnostics, chiefly haematology, and life science. Both earn far lower returns. AI and data-centre demand for advanced chips is now driving the growth. Fukuchiyama, the group's largest-ever factory, began full-scale operation in June 2026 and can triple domestic MFC capacity. FY2026 guidance calls for record sales of JPY 382 billion and operating income of JPY 70 billion. The investment case now turns on three things: semiconductor capital spending, portfolio discipline in the low-margin fields, and governance reform under pressure from the activist shareholder Oasis Management. The company profiled is HORIBA, Ltd. (株式会社堀場製作所), the Kyoto-based maker of analytical and measurement instruments. Through its subsidiary HORIBA STEC, Co., Ltd., it is the world's largest supplier of mass flow controllers (MFCs), the precision valves that meter process gases into wafer-fab tools. That makes it a core supplier in the semiconductor fab gas-delivery chain. It is listed on the Prime Market of the Tokyo Stock Exchange under code 6856. **What the company does.** HORIBA designs, makes, sells and services instruments and systems that measure and analyse gases, liquids, particles, solids and biological samples. Its core technical skills are gas analysis, fluid control, optical spectroscopy (Raman, fluorescence, ellipsometry), X-ray analysis, particle characterisation, electrochemistry (pH and water quality) and blood-cell counting. These are packaged differently for each of its three "fields." **Company's own description.** Under the motto "Omoshiro-Okashiku" ("Joy and Fun") and the long-term vision "Our Future," HORIBA describes itself as an analytical and measurement company aiming to be a "true global company." It says it contributes to preserving the global environment, human health, social safety and convenience, and scientific progress through analytical technology. The Mid-Long Term Management Plan MLMAP2028 directs its resources at three focus fields: Energy & Environment, Bio & Healthcare, and Materials & Semiconductor. The plan's slogan is "MAXIMIZE VALUE," which it pursues by aligning core technologies with customer needs. **Independent characterisation.** HORIBA is a precision-instrument conglomerate with one dominant profit engine. The semiconductor franchise sells mostly to wafer-fab equipment (WFE) makers in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China and the US, who build HORIBA MFCs, vaporisers, pressure controllers and concentration monitors into etch, deposition and cleaning tools. That makes HORIBA a high-share Tier-1 component supplier inside the fab gas-delivery subsystem. It sits one step upstream of gas-panel integrators and two steps upstream of the chipmakers who run the tools. The other two fields serve vehicle-development and environmental-compliance customers (Energy & Environment) and clinical laboratories and life-science researchers (Bio & Healthcare). Their combined operating margin was about 6% in FY2025, against 28.4% in Materials & Semiconductor. **Business and revenue model.** **Component and product sales:** Description: MFCs, vaporisers, concentration monitors, analysers, spectrometers, haematology analysers; Main fields: All three; dominant in Materials & Semiconductor **Systems and turnkey test facilities:** Description: Engine and vehicle emissions test cells, dynamometers, battery and fuel-cell test stations; Main fields: Energy & Environment **Consumables and reagents:** Description: Haematology reagents, calibration gases, electrodes and sensors; Main fields: Bio & Healthcare; Energy & Environment **Services:** Description: Calibration, repair, maintenance, lifecycle service (including HORIBA Techno Service), MFC repair and calibration centres (Pune, Kedah); Main fields: All **Engineering and testing services:** Description: Vehicle engineering, homologation and proving-ground testing (HORIBA MIRA, UK); thermal-management evaluation; Main fields: Energy & Environment **Licensing / subscription:** Description: Not a material revenue line; no separate subscription or licensing revenue is disclosed; Main fields: — The company does not split revenue between products, services and consumables. Product sales dominate. Reagents (Bio & Healthcare) and service and engineering (Energy & Environment) supply most of the recurring revenue. **Customer types and end-markets.** **Materials & Semiconductor:** Customer types: WFE makers (OEMs of etch, CVD/ALD and cleaning tools), chipmakers' fabs, materials and electronics R&D labs, universities; End-markets: Logic and memory fabs (AI and data-centre chips), power semiconductors, advanced materials, batteries **Energy & Environment:** Customer types: Automakers, powertrain suppliers, certification bodies, power utilities, process industries, governments and environmental agencies, water utilities; End-markets: Vehicle development (ICE, hybrid, BEV, fuel cell), emissions compliance, hydrogen, industrial process control, air and water monitoring **Bio & Healthcare:** Customer types: Hospital and private clinical labs, physician offices, veterinary clinics, pharmaceutical and biopharma producers, research institutes; End-markets: In-vitro diagnostics (haematology, CRP), veterinary diagnostics, biopharma quality control, drug discovery

Critical Manufacturing is a Portuguese software company that makes a manufacturing execution system (MES) for complex, high-tech discrete manufacturing. Its main verticals are semiconductors, electronics and SMT assembly, medical devices and life sciences, and industrial equipment. The company started out as a semiconductor-native MES. Since then it has added a modular, containerised platform with equipment-integration middleware (Connect IoT), an enterprise data platform, advanced planning, statistical process control, a fab digital-twin module (fabLIVE), third-party apps such as Twinzo's 3D digital twin, and, from 2025–2026, generative-AI copilots and purpose-built AI agents. It now markets this as an "Industrial Operations Platform". Gartner named it a Leader in the MES Magic Quadrant three years running (2021–2023), IDC named it a Leader in 2024–2025, and Gartner listed it as a Representative Vendor in the 2025 and 2026 Market Guides. ASMPT owns the company and uses it as the software core of its smart-factory strategy. Revenue grew from about €20 million in 2020 to more than €60 million in 2023, and almost all of it comes from outside Portugal. **What the company does.** Critical Manufacturing develops, licenses, implements and supports software that runs production operations inside factories. The core product, Critical Manufacturing MES, covers work-in-progress tracking, dispatching, recipe and specification management, quality management and SPC, material and inventory logistics, maintenance management, traceability and genealogy, labour and training qualification, and regulatory compliance (including electronic records and signatures for FDA-regulated customers). On top of that layer sit equipment-integration tooling, a manufacturing data platform, analytics, visualisation and digital-twin applications, and AI services. **How the company describes itself.** By 2026 the company presented itself as "the Industrial Operations Platform company that unites execution, connectivity, analytics and trusted AI". Its stated aim is to help manufacturers build connected, intelligent factories where people and AI work together. Earlier, from 2019 to 2025, the standard description stressed that it offered the most modern, flexible and configurable MES on the market. That description highlighted traceability and compliance, closed-loop quality, integration with enterprise systems and factory automation, and global visibility of production. **Independent characterisation.** Critical Manufacturing is a mid-sized, specialist MES vendor at the top end of the high-tech discrete market. It does not try to compete across every vertical the way Siemens, Rockwell or SAP do. Instead it goes deep in four verticals, where routings are re-entrant, product genealogy is complex, equipment automation matters (SECS/GEM, IPC-CFX, Hermes) and regulation is heavy. Since 2023 its technical direction has been to become a platform: an execution core with a canonical data model, so that analytics, digital twins and AI agents can work on governed and contextualised production data rather than scattered historians. **Business and revenue model.** Revenue comes from a mix of: **Software licences (perpetual):** Description: Enterprise and site licences for MES modules, historically the main entry point for large multi-site programmes; Disclosure: Mix not publicly disclosed **Subscription:** Description: A dedicated subscription business, led by co-founder Teresa Carreiro, which sells apps and some platform components on a subscription basis (for example the Twinzo digital-twin app); Disclosure: Mix not publicly disclosed **Professional services:** Description: Implementation, configuration, equipment integration, data migration and training, delivered directly and through certified partners (Accenture, HCL, Cognizant, L&T Technology Services, RoviSys and others); Disclosure: Mix not publicly disclosed **Maintenance and support:** Description: Annual support and upgrade contracts on the installed base; Disclosure: Mix not publicly disclosed **Education:** Description: MES/MOM training courses for manufacturing professionals; Disclosure: Not material **Value-chain position.** The company sits at Level 3 of the ISA-95 stack, between enterprise planning (ERP, PLM) above and machine control (PLC, SCADA, equipment controllers) below. Inside ASMPT it complements the group's SMT hardware (SIPLACE placement, DEK printing) and semiconductor back-end equipment. Customers are not required to use ASMPT equipment. **Customer types and end markets.** Named or announced customers include Vishay Intertechnology (passives from 2019, semiconductors from 2024), Black Semiconductor (a 300 mm graphene photonics pilot fab), SwissSEM (power semiconductors), Plessey (microLED), Danfoss, B. Braun, Ultradent, Elekta, Jabil, Preh, Meta System (SMT), Vandewiele (textile machinery) and Qingdao Topscomm (electronics, injection moulding and moulds). Almost all of its sales go to export markets. **Semiconductors (front-end and back-end):** Typical applications: 200/300 mm fabs, pilot lines, compound semiconductors, power devices, assembly and test; Strategic weight: Origin of the product; flagship references such as Black Semiconductor and Vishay **Electronics / SMT:** Typical applications: PCB assembly, box build, EMS; Strategic weight: Closest to ASMPT's SMT business; SKT MAX acquisition **Medical devices / life sciences:** Typical applications: Regulated discrete assembly, eDHR, GMP; Strategic weight: Growth vertical; VP Life Sciences appointed in 2025 **Industrial equipment:** Typical applications: Complex engineer-to-order and assembly operations; Strategic weight: Growth vertical; Danfoss, Vandewiele

Silvaco is the largest independent supplier of Technology Computer-Aided Design (TCAD) software, the physics-based process and device simulation that semiconductor manufacturers use to develop new process technologies before committing wafers in the fab. Over four decades it has built three adjacent product lines on that base. TCAD includes the Victory platform and the AI-driven FTCO digital-twin product for fabs. EDA covers analog, mixed-signal, RF, power and display circuit design, with SmartSpice, Jivaro and the optical proximity correction suite bought from Cadence. Semiconductor IP spans foundation IP, memory compilers and, since August 2025, Mixel's MIPI PHY interface IP. With FY2025 revenue of USD 63.1 million, Silvaco is a niche player next to Synopsys and Cadence. It holds strong positions in display, power semiconductors (SiC and GaN), memory and compound semiconductors. Since August 2025 it has been in a turnaround under CEO Walden "Wally" Rhines, the former Mentor Graphics chief, aimed at profitable growth through AI-enabled manufacturing digital twins, IP expansion and cost discipline. --- **Company description (FY2025 Form 10-K).** Silvaco describes itself as a provider of TCAD software, EDA software and SIP. Its products help semiconductor and photonics companies raise productivity, shorten time-to-market and cut development and manufacturing costs. The TCAD process and device simulators share data structures with its EDA modeling, simulation, verification and yield-enhancement tools. The EDA tools are used to design SIP and ICs, and SIP management tools support team collaboration on complex SoC designs. The company's tagline is "from atoms to systems." In 2026 it began calling itself a provider of "AI-enabled TCAD and EDA solutions and SIP solutions that enable semiconductor design and digital twin modeling." **Independent characterization.** Silvaco is a specialist simulation-software vendor that sits earlier in the semiconductor value chain than the mainstream digital EDA market. Synopsys and Cadence earn most of their money helping fabless designers implement and verify billion-transistor digital chips. Silvaco earns the majority of its revenue helping process engineers, device physicists and fab integration teams model how a transistor, power device, display pixel or memory cell will behave as process recipes change. That makes Silvaco as much a fab-infrastructure and process-development vendor as a design-tool vendor. FTCO pushes the company further into the fab: it combines manufacturing data with physics-based simulation and machine learning to build a "digital twin" of the wafer process, which lets fabs run virtual experiments instead of physical wafer splits. **Business model and revenue model.** **Software license revenue:** FY2021: 29.7; FY2022: 34.4; FY2023: 39.3; FY2024: 44.0; FY2025: 42.9 **Maintenance and service revenue:** FY2021: 12.3; FY2022: 12.1; FY2023: 14.9; FY2024: 15.7; FY2025: 20.2 **Total revenue:** FY2021: 42.0; FY2022: 46.5; FY2023: 54.2; FY2024: 59.7; FY2025: 63.1 **Mix (% of revenue):** FY2021: FY2021; FY2022: FY2022; FY2023: FY2023; FY2024: FY2024; FY2025: FY2025 **Software license share:** FY2021: 71; FY2022: 74; FY2023: 73; FY2024: 74; FY2025: 68 **Maintenance and service share:** FY2021: 29; FY2022: 26; FY2023: 27; FY2024: 26; FY2025: 32 Sources: IPO-era supplemental financial data (FY2021–FY2023); FY2024 Form 10-K; Q4/FY2025 earnings release, 12 Mar 2026. Most customers sign multi-year, fixed-price agreements that bundle a software license with maintenance and support. Silvaco recognizes a large share of license value upfront, so quarterly revenue is lumpy and depends on the timing of renewals. Renewals cluster in the fourth quarter, and the third quarter is seasonally soft for TCAD. Upsell happens at renewal through additional seats, modules or IP. The SIP business earns license fees and, for some products, royalties. FTCO is sold as software plus engagement-heavy deployment services, which explains why maintenance and services rose to 32% of revenue in FY2025. Remaining performance obligations were USD 34.3 million at 31 Dec 2024 (46% recognizable within 12 months), USD 36.4 million at 30 Jun 2025 (50%) and USD 45.0 million at 30 Jun 2026 (52%) (Q4 2024 release; Q2 2025 release; Q2 2026 Form 10-Q). **Value-chain position.** Silvaco's tools are used at the very start of the semiconductor lifecycle: materials and process R&D, device architecture, process integration and yield ramp. They are also used in compact-model extraction (Utmost), which links fab physics to the circuit designer, and in analog, mixed-signal and power IC design and verification. Through Mixel and its foundation IP it supplies pre-verified building blocks to SoC designers on advanced foundry nodes down to TSMC N2P. **Customer types.** Integrated device manufacturers, foundries, memory makers, flat-panel display makers, power-semiconductor makers (Si, SiC, GaN), OEMs and ODMs, semiconductor equipment companies, government laboratories and universities. The IPO prospectus stated that in 2023 Silvaco's TCAD was used by 3 of the 10 largest semiconductor companies, 8 of the 10 largest flat-panel display companies and 4 of the 10 leading power-device companies. Its EDA tools were used by 6 of the 10 largest semiconductor companies and 7 of the 10 largest display companies. Named customers and partners include Micron (memory, FTCO), Vicor (Victory TCAD 3D for power devices), Analog Power Conversion (DTCO flow for Si and SiC power), APEC of Taiwan (SiC power) and ITRI (SmartSpice for MCU start-ups). **End-markets served.** Display, power devices, automotive, memory, high-performance computing, foundries, photonics, IoT, and 5G/6G mobile. In 2025–2026, management named AI infrastructure (power, memory, foundry), automotive, display and photonics as the main sources of new-customer bookings.

Synopsys is one of the two dominant suppliers of electronic design automation (EDA) software. It is also the world's largest supplier of interface and foundation semiconductor IP, and, since the July 2025 acquisition of Ansys, one of the largest independent vendors of engineering simulation software. The company describes itself as "the leader in engineering solutions from silicon to systems." Nearly every advanced logic chip designed at TSMC, Samsung or Intel nodes passes through Synopsys synthesis, place-and-route, timing signoff, verification or IP at some stage. That makes Synopsys a toll-collector on semiconductor R&D spending rather than on unit volumes. About 78% of revenue is recurring. Contracted backlog was USD 10.9 billion at July 31, 2026, and the business runs at non-GAAP operating margins in the low 40s. Management now targets a margin of about 50% by FY2030. The investment debate centres on four issues: integrating Ansys, rebuilding growth in Design IP after the FY2025 setback, moving to royalty and AI-consumption pricing models, and the company's exposure to China and to U.S. export controls. --- ### What the company does Synopsys sells software, hardware and IP that engineers use to design, verify, simulate and manufacture semiconductors and the electronic and physical systems built around them. The portfolio covers the full chip-design flow: - architecture exploration and virtual prototyping; - RTL design, logic synthesis and physical implementation; - static timing, power and physical signoff; - functional verification by simulation, formal methods and hardware-assisted verification (emulation and FPGA prototyping); - custom/analog design and circuit simulation; - design-for-manufacturing software used by foundries (optical proximity correction, TCAD, yield analysis); - since July 2025, Ansys multiphysics simulation (structural, fluids, electromagnetics, thermal, optics, systems safety) used in automotive, aerospace, industrial, energy, healthcare and electronics. It also licenses pre-verified semiconductor IP blocks, such as PCIe, DDR/LPDDR/HBM, UCIe, Ethernet SerDes, USB and logic libraries, that customers drop into their chips instead of designing them in-house. ### The company's own description The FY2025 Form 10-K calls Synopsys "the leader in engineering solutions from silicon to systems, enabling customers to rapidly innovate AI-powered products." It says the company delivers "silicon design, IP, simulation and analysis solutions, and design services." Strategic emphasis falls on AI-driven chip design under the Synopsys.ai umbrella, integrating Ansys simulation into the design flow, and redirecting Design IP resources to higher-growth opportunities. ### Business and revenue model | Revenue type (USD M) | FY2024 | FY2025 | |---|---|---| | Time-based products | 3224.3 | 3489.6 | | Upfront products | 1802.2 | 2010.6 | | Maintenance and service | 1100.9 | 1554.0 | | Total revenue | 6127.4 | 7054.2 | Revenue falls into three recognition types (FY2025 Form 10-K and Q4 FY2025 Financial Supplement): **Time-based products:** FY2024: 3224.3; FY2025: 3489.6 **Upfront products:** FY2024: 1802.2; FY2025: 2010.6 **Maintenance and service:** FY2024: 1100.9; FY2025: 1554.0 **Total revenue:** FY2024: 6127.4; FY2025: 7054.2 **Time-based licenses (49% of FY2025 revenue):** These are typically three-year term licenses for EDA software, recognized ratably. They form the core of recurring revenue. **Upfront products (29%):** These include perpetual and some term licenses recognized at delivery, hardware (ZeBu emulators and HAPS prototyping systems sold or leased), most IP licenses, and certain Ansys perpetual and term licenses recognized at a point in time. **Maintenance and service (22%):** This covers software maintenance, Ansys lease maintenance, IP support, design services and cloud services. The FY2025 jump reflects Ansys's large maintenance base. **Recurring revenue:** Synopsys counts time-based products, multi-period IP contracts and maintenance/service as recurring. It was 77% of revenue in FY2024 and 78% in FY2025. **Royalties:** Sales-based royalties on some IP are recognized as customers ship units and are excluded from backlog. The September 2026 Amazon agreement adds a structured license-plus-royalty model ("application-optimized IP"). **Consumption and outcome pricing:** This is new in 2026. Agentic AI tools (AgentEngineer, Autopilot) and GPT-Synopsys are being priced through subscription, consumption-based usage and, for GPT-Synopsys, a revenue share tied to design outcomes. **Flexible spending accounts (FSA):** Large customers commit to non-cancellable spending pools and choose products and quantities later. Non-cancellable FSA commitments were USD 1.9 billion of the USD 10.9 billion backlog at July 31, 2026. ### Value-chain position Synopsys sits upstream of every semiconductor value chain. It supplies the tools and building blocks that fabless chip designers, integrated device manufacturers (IDMs), hyperscalers designing custom silicon, systems companies and foundries use before any wafer is processed. It does not make chips. Its revenue tracks customers' R&D budgets and design starts rather than wafer volumes, which historically made it more resilient through semiconductor down-cycles than equipment or chip companies. Through Ansys, Synopsys now also reaches downstream system OEMs (automotive, aerospace, industrial equipment, consumer electronics) that simulate full products. The company calls this the "silicon to systems" continuum. ### Customers and end markets Customers include the leading semiconductor companies: Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Qualcomm, Broadcom, MediaTek, Samsung, SK hynix, TSMC and Arm. Hyperscalers designing custom silicon include Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Meta. System OEMs come in through Ansys. The 10-K says Synopsys depends on "a relatively small number of large customers." It does not name any customer or give a percentage of revenue above 10%, but it noted that "challenges with a major foundry customer" hurt FY2025 results. Press coverage widely identified that customer as Intel. The main end markets are: - AI and high-performance compute: data-center accelerators, custom ASICs, chiplets and 3D-IC. - Mobile and consumer. - Automotive and software-defined vehicles. - Industrial and Internet of Things. - Aerospace and defense, where Ansys STK, LS-DYNA and Fluent are used. - Memory. - Foundry and manufacturing. ### Independent characterization Synopsys is best understood as two linked franchises with different economics: 1. **A semiconductor-design software franchise with high switching costs.** EDA plus hardware-assisted verification is a de facto duopoly with Cadence. Customers rarely change signoff or synthesis tools because tape-outs cost hundreds of millions of dollars and design methodologies are built around specific tools. Growth tracks the number and complexity of advanced-node designs, which AI accelerators, chiplets and 2nm/A16 nodes are pushing sharply upward. 2. **An IP franchise that is being re-engineered.** For years the "build once, sell many" model of standards-based interface IP grew at double digits. FY2025 exposed its sensitivity to a few large customers (Intel's foundry retrenchment), China export controls and the cost of the customization AI customers demand. Design IP margins fell from 38.3% to 23.9%. Management is responding with two models. "Factory 1" keeps standards-based IP. "Factory 2", or application-optimized IP (AOIP), adds royalties, with Amazon as lead customer. Management also sold the processor IP line (ARC) to GlobalFoundries. Ansys adds a third, slower-growing but highly profitable simulation franchise. Its main strategic value lies in cross-selling and "multiphysics-aware" chip design (Multiphysics Fusion), not in standalone growth.

Axus Technology is a Chandler, Arizona maker of chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) equipment and a process-services specialist. It started as an engineering firm that refurbished and remanufactured legacy CMP, grinding and post-CMP cleaning tools from Applied Materials, IPEC/SpeedFam-IPEC and Strasbaugh. Over two decades it became a designer of new equipment. Its flagship Capstone CS200 platform, launched in 2020, was described as the first new 150/200mm CMP platform in more than three decades. It has become a preferred tool among silicon carbide (SiC) device and substrate makers in Europe, Asia and North America. Axus combines new tools (Capstone CMP and Aquarius wafer cleaning), refurbished and upgraded legacy tools, spare parts and an in-house process applications lab and foundry. This gives it a full-lifecycle presence in mature-node, compound-semiconductor and More-than-Moore fabs. In December 2025 ASM International acquired Axus for €81 million net plus up to €30 million in earn-out. The deal gave ASM its first CMP capability. ASM positions it as complementary to its interface engineering and chemistry strengths and to 3D integration. Axus Technology was privately held until December 2025, when ASM International N.V. bought it. It now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of ASM. The company's shares are no longer traded or valued separately, so the market data below refers to ASM International, which owns it. **What the company does.** Axus provides surface-processing solutions: equipment and process know-how that make semiconductor and substrate materials flatter, smoother or thinner. Its main technical areas are: - CMP and polishing - wafer thinning and grinding - edge grinding and profiling - substrate cleaning, including post-CMP clean - surface preparation for wafer bonding. It works with many substrates and films, including silicon, SiC, gallium nitride (GaN), sapphire, compound semiconductors and large-format panels. It serves both production fabs and small development facilities. **Company self-description.** Axus describes itself as a recognised industry leader in designing and building modern, flexible, next-generation equipment and in custom process development. The Capstone CMP and Aquarius wafer-cleaning platforms lead its offer. It says it enables companies from startups to high-volume manufacturers to test, develop and implement solutions for novel and emerging materials, process integration schemes and applications. Its equipment ranges from low-cost entry-level tools to high-volume manufacturing systems. A process applications lab and foundry with full process and metrology equipment supports this. **Independent characterisation.** Axus has a hybrid OEM-plus-services model that is unusual in CMP. Two firms dominate the leading-edge 300mm CMP market: Applied Materials and Ebara together hold roughly 80% of global CMP equipment share, according to industry estimates. Axus has chosen not to compete with them. It targets the 100/150/200mm segment, where: 1. the installed base is old (many tools are 1990s-era Mirra, IPEC and Strasbaugh platforms) 2. new materials such as SiC and GaN need more aggressive process conditions than legacy tools were designed for 3. customers value process engineering support as much as hardware. The refurbishment heritage gives Axus deep knowledge of legacy platforms and a route into customers. The Capstone platform turns that relationship into higher-value sales of new tools. **Revenue model.** Revenue comes from four streams: **New equipment:** Description: Capstone CS200-series CMP tools and the Aquarius wafer cleaner; Character: Product, project-based, lumpy **Remanufactured and refurbished equipment:** Description: Legacy CMP, grinding and cleaning tools rebuilt to OEM specifications, with installation and warranty; Character: Product and service hybrid **Parts, upgrades and service:** Description: Spare parts, assemblies, carrier upgrades, field service, installation support; Character: Recurring, installed-base driven **Process development and foundry:** Description: Contract CMP, thinning and cleaning in the Chandler lab, from R&D to standard production foundry runs; Character: Service, fee-based The split of revenue across these streams is not publicly disclosed. **Value chain position.** Axus is a Tier-1 capital equipment supplier to device makers (IDMs, foundries, MEMS and photonics fabs), substrate and wafer makers (SiC, GaN, sapphire), research institutes and universities, and CMP consumables suppliers. Consumables suppliers use its foundry to test and validate slurries and pads. **Customer types.** Its customers include: - leading-edge production semiconductor manufacturers - SiC device and wafer makers (described as top-tier worldwide) - microLED and AR/MR display developers - MEMS fabs - university and government R&D labs - CMP consumables vendors. **End-markets.** The main end-markets are: - power electronics (SiC and GaN for EVs, renewables and AI data-centre power) - MEMS - advanced packaging and 3D integration (through-silicon vias, wafer bonding) - photonics and microdisplays (microLED for AR) - RF - automotive, defence and aerospace, and life sciences - IoT devices - large-format printed circuit board planarization through distribution.

Entrepix is a niche, engineering-led specialist in the CMP and post-CMP-clean corner of the semiconductor fab. It began in 1998 as a refurbisher of used CMP tools, launched what it describes as the industry's first CMP outsourcing (foundry) service in 2002, and today combines four activities: remanufactured and modernized wafer-cleaning systems (notably the OnTrak/DSS-200 double-sided scrubber), replacement parts and reverse-engineered upgrades for legacy Applied Materials Mirra and Reflexion CMP platforms, field service, and a CMP foundry that runs process development and low-volume production on wafers from 1 inch to 12 inches. Its customers are integrated device manufacturers, pure-play foundries, substrate makers, materials and slurry developers, MEMS and compound-semiconductor fabs and OEMs, many of them running 200 mm and smaller lines that the original equipment makers no longer fully support. Since 2023 it has been Amtech's CMP and cleaning arm, sold alongside PR Hoffman polishing consumables and Intersurface Dynamics process chemicals. The business is small, US-manufactured, cyclical and exposed to the mature-node and silicon carbide downturn, but its parts-and-service revenue was growing about 40% year on year in early 2026. ### What the company does Entrepix serves one process step in semiconductor manufacturing: chemical mechanical planarization, the polishing step that flattens wafer surfaces between deposition layers, together with the cleaning that must follow it. Its own description, in the notes to its audited FY2022 financial statements, is that it specializes in CMP, cleaning and related semiconductor processes, offering outsourced technology development services and volume production through its Foundry Division, while supplying capital equipment, engineered solutions (performance upgrades, obsolescence replacement, maintenance parts and sub-assemblies) and field services through its Equipment Division. Its customers are integrated device manufacturers, pure-play foundries, materials and product developers, silicon and advanced-substrate manufacturers and original equipment manufacturers in the United States, Europe and Asia. Amtech's FY2025 Form 10-K describes Entrepix's offering within the SFS segment as equipment for SiC and silicon wafer cleaning, testing equipment used to optimize CMP processes, CMP equipment parts and services, and CMP foundry services. The 10-K also states Entrepix's competitive strategy plainly: providing solutions for obsolete equipment on legacy 200 mm, 300 mm and smaller-wafer processing tools where the OEM has discontinued support, and supporting customer wafer production and R&D in its class 1000 cleanroom foundry. ### Business model and revenue model Entrepix earns revenue in four ways: 1. **Capital equipment (product).** Sales of remanufactured or refurbished CMP polishers, post-CMP cleaners and metrology tools, and new-build OnTrak/DSS-200 double-sided wafer cleaners assembled in Phoenix. These are recognized at a point in time on shipment or delivery, with installation recognized on completion. 2. **Engineered parts and upgrades (product, recurring).** Replacement parts, reverse-engineered assemblies, obsolescence fixes and performance upgrades for Applied Materials Mirra and Reflexion CMP systems and OnTrak cleaners, plus platen refinishing and head rebuilding. This is the most consumable-like revenue stream. 3. **Field service (service, partly contractual).** Preventive-maintenance contracts, tool-down and escalation support, installation and decommissioning, sub-assembly repair and training. Maintenance and service contracts are recognized over time. 4. **CMP foundry services (service).** Outsourced process development, fab-transfer support, characterization and low-volume wafer production, billed by project and recognized over time on labor hours or elapsed time. There is no subscription or licensing revenue. In the last standalone period with disclosed figures (the nine months to 30 November 2022), the Equipment Division (systems, parts, upgrades and field service) produced 93.2% of revenue and the Foundry Division 6.8%. In FY2022 the split was 91.6% and 8.4%. ### Value-chain position Entrepix sits in the aftermarket of the wafer-fab equipment value chain, between the original CMP OEMs (Applied Materials, Ebara, and Lam Research for the original OnTrak cleaner line) and the fab operators who keep running those tools after OEM support ends. It also sits upstream of device makers as a process-development partner: slurry and pad suppliers, start-ups and university or defense programs use its foundry to qualify processes before investing in tools. Within Amtech, Entrepix is the capital-equipment and service element of a substrate-processing bundle that includes PR Hoffman carriers and templates and Intersurface Dynamics slurries and cleaning chemicals. ### Customer types and end-markets | Customer type | What they buy from Entrepix | End-markets served | |---|---|---| | Integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) | Parts, upgrades, refurbished CMP and clean tools, field service | Analog, power, sensors, automotive, industrial | | Pure-play and specialty foundries | Legacy 200 mm CMP support, cleaning systems | Mature-node logic, mixed-signal, RF | | Silicon and advanced-substrate makers | DSS-200 double-sided cleaners, polishing process support | Prime silicon, SiC substrates, epitaxial wafers | | MEMS and compound-semiconductor fabs | Adapted CMP tools, foundry processing | Airbag sensors, acoustic filters, photonics, GaN, SiC | | Materials and consumables developers | Foundry test polishing and characterization | CMP slurries, pads, conditioners | | OEMs | Engineered sub-assemblies, contract fabrication | Semiconductor equipment and aerospace/defense | **Integrated device manufacturers (IDMs):** What they buy from Entrepix: Parts, upgrades, refurbished CMP and clean tools, field service; End-markets served: Analog, power, sensors, automotive, industrial **Pure-play and specialty foundries:** What they buy from Entrepix: Legacy 200 mm CMP support, cleaning systems; End-markets served: Mature-node logic, mixed-signal, RF **Silicon and advanced-substrate makers:** What they buy from Entrepix: DSS-200 double-sided cleaners, polishing process support; End-markets served: Prime silicon, SiC substrates, epitaxial wafers **MEMS and compound-semiconductor fabs:** What they buy from Entrepix: Adapted CMP tools, foundry processing; End-markets served: Airbag sensors, acoustic filters, photonics, GaN, SiC **Materials and consumables developers:** What they buy from Entrepix: Foundry test polishing and characterization; End-markets served: CMP slurries, pads, conditioners **OEMs:** What they buy from Entrepix: Engineered sub-assemblies, contract fabrication; End-markets served: Semiconductor equipment and aerospace/defense Amtech's 2026 positioning of Entrepix (in the September 2026 India appointment) lists silicon carbide, compound semiconductors, photonics, MEMS and other advanced substrate technologies as target applications. ### Independent characterization Entrepix is best understood as an installed-base economics business. Its value lies in the thousands of legacy CMP and cleaning tools still running in 150 mm and 200 mm fabs, whose OEMs have moved on to 300 mm leading-edge platforms. Its pre-acquisition financials show the attractions of that model: about 40% gross margin, a 14% to 19% operating margin, minimal capital intensity (capex of US$0.86 million in FY2022 on US$19.6 million of revenue) and no dependence on new-tool R&D programs. The weaknesses are just as clear. Revenue is lumpy because whole tools are a large share of sales; customer concentration is high (three customers were 38% of revenue in the nine months to November 2022); inventory is heavy (US$7.1 million against US$18.4 million of nine-month revenue); and demand tracks mature-node fab utilization, which has been weak since 2023. Under Amtech, management has re-centered the business on parts and service, which grew about 40% year on year in the March 2026 quarter, while equipment shipments, particularly cleaners for SiC substrate makers, fell.

SurplusGLOBAL describes itself as the world's largest independent dealer in pre-owned and legacy semiconductor manufacturing equipment. Since 2000 it has bought idle tools from integrated device manufacturers, foundries, OSATs and OEMs, and resold them to mature-node fabs around the world: more than 60,000 tools to over 6,000 customers. It runs an air-controlled warehouse and refurbishment campus of about 68,000 m² in Yongin, which it says holds the industry's largest standing inventory of legacy tools. A repair subsidiary, EQ GLOBAL, services RF generators and PCBs. Since 2025 the company has been trying to become a two-sided platform. Its AI-assisted marketplace, SemiMarket, its new Yongin SemiMarket Parts Mall of about 41,000 m², and its online-bidding service are meant to move it from inventory-risk trading toward commission and service revenue from parts. Demand for mature-node (≥40 nm, 200 mm and older 300 mm) capacity drives the business, and its earnings follow the legacy-fab investment cycle. That cycle pushed it from record profit in 2021–2022 to an operating loss in 2025 and the first half of 2026. --- ### What the company does SurplusGLOBAL sits in the secondary market for semiconductor capital equipment. Front-end and back-end tools in leading-edge fabs are retired long before they wear out, when a node migrates, a fab is consolidated, a product reaches end of life or an OSAT restructures. Mature-node manufacturers still need those tools: makers of power devices, MCUs, analog/mixed-signal chips, MEMS, sensors, LEDs, display drivers and automotive chips, plus a growing number of Chinese, Indian and Southeast Asian fabs. Many of these buyers cannot get new 200 mm tools from OEMs, which have cut or ended production and support for older platforms. SurplusGLOBAL connects the two sides as a principal (inventory sales) or an agent (brokerage and remarketing). It also provides technical, logistics and compliance services along the way. The company's own description of its business covers the purchase, sale, refurbishment, reconfiguration and rental of pre-owned semiconductor equipment. It serves semiconductor front-end and back-end, display, LED, solar and PCB-assembly (SMT) customers, and also buys and sells idle machinery generally. Its stated services include purchasing, global sourcing, sales, remarketing and auctions. Technical services cover refurbishment, reconfiguration, de-installation, relocation and power-on demonstrations, and the company also offers logistics, export-compliance management, equipment financing and fab consulting. ### Business model and revenue model | Channel | Mechanism | Economic profile | |---|---|---| | Inventory (principal) sales | Buys tools outright, warehouses them in Yongin or abroad, refurbishes or reconfigures as needed, resells | Highest gross margin per unit, but capital-intensive; inventory was KRW 191.9 bn at end-2025, 45% of total assets | | Brokerage / remarketing | Finds a seller for a buyer's request (or sells a client's idle fleet on consignment) without taking title | Lower revenue, little balance-sheet use | | Technical & aftermarket services | Refurbishment, de-installation, relocation, demos, parts repair (EQ GLOBAL), logistics | Recurring, higher value-add | | Platform & real estate | SemiMarket commissions and fees, online bidding, Parts Mall tenancy, cluster space rental, R&D foundry / test-wafer services | Early stage; the parts business was under KRW 10 bn of revenue in mid-2026 | Revenue comes mainly from four channels: **Inventory (principal) sales:** Mechanism: Buys tools outright, warehouses them in Yongin or abroad, refurbishes or reconfigures as needed, resells; Economic profile: Highest gross margin per unit, but capital-intensive; inventory was KRW 191.9 bn at end-2025, 45% of total assets **Brokerage / remarketing:** Mechanism: Finds a seller for a buyer's request (or sells a client's idle fleet on consignment) without taking title; Economic profile: Lower revenue, little balance-sheet use **Technical & aftermarket services:** Mechanism: Refurbishment, de-installation, relocation, demos, parts repair (EQ GLOBAL), logistics; Economic profile: Recurring, higher value-add **Platform & real estate:** Mechanism: SemiMarket commissions and fees, online bidding, Parts Mall tenancy, cluster space rental, R&D foundry / test-wafer services; Economic profile: Early stage; the parts business was under KRW 10 bn of revenue in mid-2026 By revenue type, merchandise (traded goods) made up about 79% of consolidated sales in Q2 2026, "other" revenue (services, rental, commissions) about 21%, and manufactured products about 1%. The business is therefore still mostly a trading and distribution business, with platform and service revenue as a growing minority. ### Value-chain position SurplusGLOBAL sits between equipment owners and the next user. Upstream are the sellers: chipmakers such as Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, Intel and Micron, foundries, global OSATs, and OEMs disposing of trade-ins and demo tools. Downstream are the buyers: mature-node fabs, OSATs, R&D labs, universities and equipment rebuilders. The company competes with and works alongside OEM certified-refurbished programs, other independent dealers, auction houses and direct fab-to-fab deals. Management splits the industry into a "fab-to-fab" market, where chipmakers trade directly, and a "dealer" market like its own. The dealer market handles legacy tools at roughly 40 nm and above. ### Customers and end-markets Customers include more than 6,000 companies in about 40 countries. The buyer network has more than 150,000 contacts, according to the company's June 2025 materials. Exports were 70–80% of revenue in 2024. The main end-markets are mature-node logic and analog foundries, power semiconductors (Si, SiC and GaN), automotive and industrial MCUs, MEMS and sensors, LED and display, OSAT back-end assembly and test, solar, and SMT/PCB assembly. ### Independent characterization At heart, SurplusGLOBAL is an inventory-financed merchant of capital goods. Its earnings depend on how cheaply it can buy surplus tools, how long it holds them and how much demand there is when it sells. Its lasting edge is information: 26 years of transaction data, valuation history and relationships with fabs that rarely publicize what they dispose of. Its weakness is the balance sheet. Inventory turnover fell below 1.0x in 2025, and short-term borrowings of KRW 118 bn fund that inventory. SemiMarket is management's attempt to turn the information edge into an asset-light platform. The strategy makes sense. Whether it can generate material, high-margin revenue before the debt load forces the company to run down inventory is still unproven.

Cohu is a mid-cap U.S. supplier of back-end semiconductor manufacturing equipment and services. Its business centres on the final-test cell: the test handlers that move and thermally condition packaged chips, the contactors and probes that connect each device to the tester, the automated test equipment (ATE) itself, and the vision inspection and metrology systems that screen finished devices. Around this hardware sits a large recurring business in spares, kits, consumable contactors, service and, increasingly, software. That software includes DI-Core equipment analytics and the AI process-control tools from Tignis, which together give Cohu a role in data-driven yield management and manufacturing traceability across test floors. The company was built through acquisitions (Delta Design, Rasco, Ismeca, Kita and Xcerra), and it has been the leading supplier of test and inspection handlers to automotive, industrial and mobile chipmakers. Since 2025 it has been moving into AI data-centre computing: its Eclipse handler with T-Core active thermal control, and Neon inspection systems for high-bandwidth memory (HBM), now account for a growing share of orders. That shift has brought Cohu's highest growth in years, although profitability is still recovering. --- ### What the company does Cohu describes itself as a global supplier of equipment and services that improve semiconductor manufacturing yield and productivity, with a portfolio of test, automation, inspection and metrology products, software analytics and services for the semiconductor industry. Its equipment works in the "back end" of chip manufacturing, after wafers are processed. Devices are tested at wafer level or in packaged form, sorted by performance grade, inspected for physical defects and then shipped. Cohu sells into integrated device manufacturers (IDMs), fabless chip companies that set test strategy, outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) subcontractors, memory makers and foundries. The FY2025 10-K reports an active installed base of more than 25,000 systems, serving more than 280 high-volume manufacturing facilities for 108 customers in 31 countries. The ten largest customers accounted for 60% of FY2025 revenue. STMicroelectronics was the only customer above 10% of consolidated net sales in the last three years, at 12.0% in FY2023; no customer reached that level in FY2024 or FY2025. ### Business and revenue model | Revenue mix (% of net sales) | FY2023 | FY2024 | FY2025 | |---|---|---|---| | Systems (%) | 51 | 35 | 40 | | Recurring (%) | 49 | 65 | 60 | Cohu has two revenue streams: systems and recurring. **Systems:** are capital equipment: test handlers (pick-and-place, turret, gravity, strip, MEMS), thermal subsystems, semiconductor testers (Diamondx, PAx) and inspection/metrology systems (Neon, Krypton). Systems revenue rises and falls with customer capital spending and with test-cell utilisation. **Recurring:** revenue is tied to the installed base: contactors, probe heads and probe pins (consumables that wear out with use), device-specific change kits, spare parts, service contracts and software subscriptions (DI-Core, the PAICe tools, the PACE inspection software). It is less volatile than systems revenue. **Systems (%):** FY2023: 51; FY2024: 35; FY2025: 40 **Recurring (%):** FY2023: 49; FY2024: 65; FY2025: 60 Source: FY2025 Form 10-K. The mix swings sharply with the cycle. Recurring revenue made up about two-thirds of sales at the FY2024 trough. It fell to 48% of Q3 FY2026 revenue as systems shipments for AI computing ramped up. Systems accounted for 59% of Q3 FY2026 bookings. Software is still small: Q2 FY2026 was the first quarter in which software analytics revenue reached USD 1 million, and software orders that quarter rose about 140% year-on-year. ### Value-chain position Cohu sits between the ATE majors (Teradyne, Advantest), which supply the tester "brain", and the chipmakers and OSATs that run test floors. Its handlers and contactors are the mechanical, thermal and electrical interface that lets a tester work at production volume. Because Cohu also sells testers (Diamondx, PAx) and inspection systems, it can offer much of a full test cell, but it competes directly with Teradyne and Advantest only in mid-range ATE for power, analog, mixed-signal and RF devices. Most testers are manufactured for Cohu by Jabil at a Jabil facility in Malaysia. Handlers and inspection systems are built in Cohu's own plants in Melaka and Penang (Malaysia), and interface products are made in the Philippines and Japan. ### End-markets Cohu's traditional strengths are automotive (ADAS processors, power devices, microcontrollers), industrial, mobile (RF front-end modules, power-management ICs) and consumer. From 2025 onward, computing became the growth driver: AI and high-performance computing (HPC) processors, networking ASICs, silicon photonics and HBM. Computing accounted for 46% of system orders in Q2 FY2026, and computing orders grew 150% year-on-year that quarter. Management expects FY2026 HPC revenue of about USD 120 million, compared with roughly USD 11 million of HBM inspection revenue and a small base of other computing revenue in FY2025. ### Independent characterisation Cohu is a cyclical back-end equipment company with an unusually high recurring share, and it is in the middle of a portfolio rotation. Its handler and contactor franchise in automotive and industrial semiconductors is strong but mature and depends on the cycle. Between FY2022 and FY2024 revenue fell by more than half as test-cell utilisation collapsed at IDM customers. In 2025 and 2026 Cohu used its thermal-control know-how from high-power microprocessor testing, a field Delta Design pioneered around 2000, to win AI-accelerator and networking test programmes. It used vision inspection inherited from Ismeca to enter HBM inspection. The investment case now depends mainly on whether these computing programmes reach repeat production volume and whether margins can expand while new products ramp.

INFICON is a Swiss-headquartered maker of vacuum instrumentation, critical sensors, gas analysers, leak detectors and smart-manufacturing software. Its products measure, analyse and control the vacuum processes behind semiconductors, thin-film coatings, cooling systems, vehicles and many industrial goods. It sits deep in the semiconductor fab supply chain. Its residual gas analysers, capacitance diaphragm gauges, quartz-crystal deposition monitors, fab-grade leak detectors and FabGuard/FPS software are designed into the process tools of the leading equipment makers, and its software runs fault detection and factory productivity in leading fabs. It also leads in industrial leak detection for refrigeration, air conditioning and automotive production, and makes field-portable GC/MS chemical identification for defence and emergency response. Sales reached a record USD 673.7 million in 2025. On the current AI-driven semiconductor upcycle, the company guides to USD 820–850 million for 2026 at an operating margin of 21–22%. It is family-anchored, largely self-financed, and pays out most of its earnings as dividends. --- ### The company's own description In its corporate boilerplate and the 2025 Annual Report, INFICON describes itself as a leading provider of innovative instrumentation, critical sensor technologies, and Smart Manufacturing / Industry 4.0 software that improve the productivity and quality of tools, processes and complete factories. It describes its analysis, measurement and control products as: - essential for gas leak detection in air conditioning, refrigeration and automotive manufacturing; - vital to equipment makers and end users in the complex fabrication of semiconductors and thin-film coatings for optics, flat panel displays, solar cells and industrial vacuum coating. Other users of its vacuum-based processes include life sciences, research, aerospace, packaging, heat treatment and laser cutting. The company also uses its vacuum expertise to provide toxic chemical analysis products for emergency response, security and environmental monitoring. ### What the company does INFICON designs, manufactures and services instruments that work at the interface between a vacuum (or controlled-gas) process and the people or machines that control it. These products fall into five technology families: 1. **Vacuum measurement.** Total-pressure gauges (capacitance diaphragm, Pirani, cold- and hot-cathode ionisation, combination gauges) and their controllers. 2. **Gas analysis.** Residual gas analysers (quadrupole mass spectrometers), in-situ process monitors, gas concentration monitors, portable GC/MS and micro gas chromatographs. 3. **Thin-film deposition control.** Quartz-crystal microbalance (QCM) sensors, crystals and deposition controllers used in evaporation and sputtering for optics, OLED displays and semiconductors. 4. **Leak detection.** Helium mass-spectrometer leak detectors, hydrogen (forming-gas) leak detectors, sniffers, refrigerant leak detectors and integrated industrial leak-test systems. 5. **Software.** Sensor integration, fault detection and classification (FDC), statistical process control, real-time dispatching, scheduling, capacity modelling and fab analytics. These are sold under the FabGuard and FPS (Factory Productivity Solutions) families, and since January 2024 also under FabTime. ### Business and revenue model INFICON makes most of its money from instruments and spare parts. The key product lines in Semi & Vacuum Coating are mostly sold to OEM tool builders (e.g., the wafer-fab equipment majors) and designed into their deposition, etch and other process chambers. This produces a "design-in" revenue stream that follows wafer-fab equipment shipments and lasts through the tool's life, with demand for consumables (crystals, sensors) and replacement gauges. The rest of the revenue comes from: - direct sales to end users (fabs, display and coating plants, automotive and HVAC-R manufacturers); - multi-brand and long-term channel partnerships in General Vacuum, where INFICON sensors also appear inside third-party vacuum pumps and systems; - government programmes in Security & Energy (e.g., US Department of Defense chemical detection); - software licences, maintenance and service. INFICON does not split product, service and software revenue in its published reporting, so the subscription/licence share is not publicly disclosed. Management describes software as a growing, strategically important complement to its instruments, not yet a separately reported line. Close to 10% of the workforce are application engineers who support customers day to day (Sustainability Report 2025), which shows how service-intensive the model is. ### Value-chain position INFICON is a Tier-1/Tier-2 component and subsystem supplier. In semiconductors it sells to wafer-fab equipment OEMs, which sell to chipmakers, and it also sells software and leak detectors directly to fabs. It received the 2024 Supplier Excellence Award for New Product Introduction Performance from Lam Research, which illustrates its standing with the largest etch/deposition OEMs. In HVAC-R and automotive it supplies production-line leak-test equipment to manufacturers of compressors, heat exchangers, air-conditioning units, fuel and brake systems, batteries and EV thermal-management components. ### Customer types and end markets | Target market | Customers | Typical use | |---|---|---| | Semiconductor & Vacuum Coating | Wafer-fab equipment OEMs, chipmakers (logic, DRAM/HBM, NAND), display, optics, solar and industrial coating makers | In-situ gas analysis, chamber pressure measurement, deposition-rate control, fab leak detection, FDC and fab-productivity software | | General Vacuum | Vacuum pump and system makers, analytical-instrument OEMs, research institutes, life sciences, aerospace, heat treatment, laser cutting | Vacuum gauges, RGAs, leak detectors embedded in or attached to vacuum systems | | Automotive, Refrigeration & Air Conditioning (RAC/Auto) | HVAC-R OEMs, compressor makers, automotive tier-1s, battery makers, service technicians | Production-line helium/hydrogen leak testing; handheld refrigerant leak detectors for service | | Security & Energy | Defence ministries, emergency responders, environmental agencies, natural gas and energy operators | Field-portable GC/MS (HAPSITE), micro GC for gas quality, VOC detection | INFICON reports sales across four target markets (not formal reporting segments): **Semiconductor & Vacuum Coating:** Customers: Wafer-fab equipment OEMs, chipmakers (logic, DRAM/HBM, NAND), display, optics, solar and industrial coating makers; Typical use: In-situ gas analysis, chamber pressure measurement, deposition-rate control, fab leak detection, FDC and fab-productivity software **General Vacuum:** Customers: Vacuum pump and system makers, analytical-instrument OEMs, research institutes, life sciences, aerospace, heat treatment, laser cutting; Typical use: Vacuum gauges, RGAs, leak detectors embedded in or attached to vacuum systems **Automotive, Refrigeration & Air Conditioning (RAC/Auto):** Customers: HVAC-R OEMs, compressor makers, automotive tier-1s, battery makers, service technicians; Typical use: Production-line helium/hydrogen leak testing; handheld refrigerant leak detectors for service **Security & Energy:** Customers: Defence ministries, emergency responders, environmental agencies, natural gas and energy operators; Typical use: Field-portable GC/MS (HAPSITE), micro GC for gas quality, VOC detection ### Independent characterisation INFICON is best seen as a high-quality, niche "picks-and-shovels" instrumentation house. It earns 45–50% gross margins from a critical-to-function but low-cost-share position inside larger capital equipment. It is a classic semiconductor capex derivative: Semi & Vacuum Coating was 49% of 2025 sales and 58% of Q3 2026 sales. About 40–50% of sales are more industrial and stable, which cushions the downturns. The investment case therefore rests on three things: content gains per tool and per fab, operating leverage on a deliberately over-sized manufacturing base, and, more recently, the AI-driven ramp in leading-edge logic, HBM memory and data-centre infrastructure.

PDF Solutions is a mid-sized, founder-led software and data company that sits between chip designers, wafer fabs, OSATs and equipment makers. Its software captures, cleans and analyses the large volumes of data produced across semiconductor manufacturing and test. The company started as a yield-improvement consultancy and has become a platform built around four assets. Exensio is its analytics suite. Cimetrix provides equipment connectivity and control software, now running on tens of thousands of tools. secureWISE is the remote-access network that equipment makers use to service tools in more than 300 manufacturing locations. DirectScan pairs the proprietary eProbe e-beam with Characterization Vehicle test chips for inline electrical inspection. Around 94% of FY2025 revenue was recurring, and contracted backlog stood at $270.7 million in June 2026. Management describes the company as an "execution platform" for a semiconductor industry that is increasingly global, chiplet-based and AI-driven. It targets 20% annual revenue growth with non-GAAP gross margins above 77% and operating margins above 27%. --- ### What the company does In its FY2025 Form 10-K, PDF Solutions says it offers products and services that let organisations across the semiconductor and electronics ecosystems "connect, collect, manage, and analyze data about design, equipment, manufacturing, and test" to improve yield and quality. The platform is sold under six brands: Exensio, Sapience, DirectScan, CV (Characterization Vehicle), Cimetrix and secureWISE. In practice the company plays three linked roles: 1. **Data infrastructure and analytics.** Exensio and Sapience ingest and normalise data from many sources: fault-detection and classification (FDC) sensors, parametric and functional test, inline metrology and inspection, assembly, and supply-chain systems. A semiconductor-specific semantic model aligns the data so engineers and AI models can find yield-limiting issues, control processes, screen out bad die and run test operations. Exensio Studio AI, built on Tiber AI Studio source code licensed from Intel in 2025, adds machine-learning lifecycle management (MLOps). Exensio Aurora, released in beta in September 2026, is a new server-side architecture for petabyte-scale data and agentic AI. 2. **Connectivity and secure collaboration.** Cimetrix software lets equipment makers connect tools to factory systems through SEMI standards such as SECS/GEM, GEM300, Interface A/EDA and PDA. Equipment makers pay runtime licence fees per tool shipped. secureWISE, acquired in March 2025, is the de facto secure remote-access network that equipment makers use to bring up, support and analyse tools inside customers' fabs. At acquisition it was used by more than 100 equipment vendors in more than 190 fabs; by end-2025 it connected more than 300 manufacturing locations. The DEX (Data Exchange) network lets fabless companies, foundries and OSATs share manufacturing data securely. 3. **Physical characterisation and inspection.** DirectScan combines the eProbe non-contact e-beam tool with CV test chips and Exensio characterisation software. Together they measure the electrical behaviour of structures buried inside FinFET, gate-all-around and 3D devices, which optical inspection cannot see. eProbe systems are usually placed with customers under multi-year subscription-style contracts rather than sold outright, so PDF carries the tools as capital assets. ### Business model and revenue model | Revenue form | Main products | Character | |---|---|---| | Subscription / term licence / SaaS | Exensio, Sapience, secureWISE, DirectScan placements | Multi-year, ratable, in backlog | | Perpetual licence | Exensio (some customers) | Upfront, lumpy, high margin | | Runtime / per-unit licence | Cimetrix connectivity on each tool shipped | Tracks equipment shipment volumes | | Usage-based data fees | secureWISE | Tracks connected tools and data volumes | | Royalty (Gainshare) | CV / yield-ramp engagements | Tracks customer wafer volumes and yields | | Services | Engineering, characterisation, integration | Fixed fee or time-and-materials | From its FY2025 results onward, PDF reports revenue in two categories: **Platform revenue:** covers software licences (other than Cimetrix runtime licences), maintenance and support, SaaS, engineering services, fixed fees for CV systems, and DirectScan licences and purchase contracts. It was $181.0 million in FY2025, 82.6% of the total. **Volume-based revenue:** covers Cimetrix runtime licences, secureWISE data-usage fees and Gainshare, a variable royalty tied to customers' production yields or volumes. It was $38.0 million in FY2025, 17.4% of the total. Before 2026 the categories were *Analytics* and *Integrated Yield Ramp (IYR)*. IYR covered all fees from contracts with yield-based performance incentives. PDF also tracks a second split. Recurring revenue (subscriptions, SaaS, maintenance, term licences, runtime licences, secureWISE data and Gainshare) was $205.1 million, or 94% of FY2025 revenue, up from 81% in FY2024. Upfront revenue (Exensio perpetual licences, certain CV test-chip designs, and hardware sales or sales-type leases) was 6%. The FY2024 recurring share was lower because that year included a DirectScan capital sale. By pricing form, the mix is roughly: **Subscription / term licence / SaaS:** Main products: Exensio, Sapience, secureWISE, DirectScan placements; Character: Multi-year, ratable, in backlog **Perpetual licence:** Main products: Exensio (some customers); Character: Upfront, lumpy, high margin **Runtime / per-unit licence:** Main products: Cimetrix connectivity on each tool shipped; Character: Tracks equipment shipment volumes **Usage-based data fees:** Main products: secureWISE; Character: Tracks connected tools and data volumes **Royalty (Gainshare):** Main products: CV / yield-ramp engagements; Character: Tracks customer wafer volumes and yields **Services:** Main products: Engineering, characterisation, integration; Character: Fixed fee or time-and-materials ### Value-chain position PDF supplies no materials or production equipment, and it sits outside the direct capital-equipment purchase cycle. It sells software, data networks and inspection capability to: **IDMs and foundries:** (logic, memory, analog/power, automotive): Exensio manufacturing analytics, process control, characterisation, DirectScan, Gainshare. **Fabless semiconductor companies:** Exensio Fabless and Test Operations analytics, the DEX network to OSATs and foundries. **OSATs and test houses:** Exensio Test and Assembly Operations, DEX, secureWISE. **Semiconductor equipment OEMs:** Cimetrix connectivity SDKs and runtime licences, secureWISE remote access, Exensio equipment analytics. Customers include test-equipment maker Advantest. **Electronics, systems and hyperscale companies:** in 2026 the company reported seven-figure Exensio contracts with hyperscalers and photonics companies. Management said the customer base grew from about 150 in 2020 to more than 370 by late 2025, mainly through the addition of equipment and cloud-sector customers. ### End-markets The served end-markets are advanced logic (including leading-edge foundry), memory (DRAM, HBM and NAND, through equipment-maker connectivity and DirectScan's expansion into mature nodes and potentially memory), analog and power devices (for example, DENSO's 300 mm IGBT ramp), advanced packaging and chiplets, back-end test, and electronics assembly. ### Independent characterisation PDF is no longer a services-heavy yield consultancy. It is a vertical-software and data-network company with a hardware-enabled moat in DirectScan. Three things stand out: 1. **Embedded data networks.** secureWISE and Cimetrix are present on large fractions of the world's 300 mm tool base, so PDF's network effects grow with every tool shipped. 2. **Recurring but concentrated revenue.** Three customers made up 53% of FY2025 revenue. Contracts are large, multi-year and lumpy at the booking level. 3. **Small GAAP profits despite high gross margins.** Stock compensation of $25.9 million in FY2025, acquisition amortisation and DirectScan depreciation absorb most of the operating leverage. Non-GAAP operating margin reached 21% in FY2025 against a GAAP margin of about 3%.

Advantest is the world's largest supplier of automatic test equipment (ATE) for semiconductors, the instruments that check chips electrically before they ship. Its share of the global tester market rose from 58% in CY2024 to 65% in CY2025, according to its 2026 Integrated Annual Report. Its V93000 SoC platform is the standard production tester for the AI accelerators, GPUs and high-performance processors driving the current semiconductor cycle. Its T5000-series memory testers are central to high-bandwidth DRAM (HBM) production. Around these core testers the company has built a wider "integrated test solution" offering: test handlers, device interfaces and test boards, system-level and burn-in test, test-cell software, cloud and real-time data analytics, and photomask metrology SEMs. Almost all sales (97.8% in FY2025, 99.4% in H1 FY2026) come from outside Japan, mainly Taiwan, Korea and China. AI-driven demand has transformed the company's scale and profitability. Net sales rose from JPY 486.5 billion in FY2023 to JPY 1,128.6 billion in FY2025, and the FY2026 guidance is JPY 1,863.0 billion with a 51.9% operating margin. Advantest is now one of Japan's most valuable listed companies. --- **What the company does.** Advantest designs, manufactures, sells and services equipment that tests semiconductors at several points in the value chain: design verification and silicon validation, wafer sort, final test after packaging, burn-in and system-level test (SLT). Its customers are integrated device manufacturers (IDMs), fabless chip designers, foundries and outsourced semiconductor assembly and test companies (OSATs). Fabless designers often specify the tester even when an OSAT or foundry buys and runs it. The company also makes test handlers that move devices into and out of the tester, device-interface hardware (test boards, sockets, probe-card interfaces), and scanning electron microscopes used to measure photomasks. **The company's own description.** Advantest calls itself the leading maker of automatic test and measurement equipment used to design and produce semiconductors for high-performance computing (HPC), AI, automotive, industrial and consumer applications. It says it offers test solutions across the semiconductor value chain, covering wafer sort and final test, design verification and silicon validation, system-level test, test handlers, device interfaces, photomask SEMs and yield-improving data analytics. Its vision statement is "Be the most trusted and valued test solution company in the semiconductor value chain," and its purpose is "Enabling Leading-Edge Technologies." **Independent characterisation.** In economic terms, Advantest has become a near-monopoly supplier of production test capacity for leading-edge AI silicon. Two forces drive its revenue. The first is unit volume of complex devices (GPUs, custom AI ASICs, HBM stacks, networking chips). The second is test intensity per device, which rises with transistor count, chiplet integration, advanced packaging (2.5D/3D, CoWoS-class), higher power and the need for "known good die" before costly packaging. Each new AI-processor generation needs more tester time per unit, more digital and power channels per tester, and more test steps (wafer-level, final and SLT). As a result, tester demand has grown faster than semiconductor revenue. This explains why Advantest's sales grew 44.7% in FY2025, while management expects the overall semiconductor market to grow more modestly, possibly passing USD 1 trillion in CY2026. **Business and revenue model.** Revenue is mainly product sales of capital equipment (test systems, handlers), plus a growing recurring base: consumable device-interface products (test boards and interfaces from R&D Altanova and Shin Puu), field service and support contracts, spare parts, software licences (SmarTest, ACS cloud and real-time data offerings, Velocity EDA from AllianceATE) and upgrades. **SoC test systems:** FY2025 sales (JPY bn): 767.4; Share of total: 68.0%; Nature: Capital equipment, product sale **Memory test systems:** FY2025 sales (JPY bn): 171.5; Share of total: 15.2%; Nature: Capital equipment, product sale - **Other systems (handlers, device interfaces, nanotechnology, SLT etc.)** — FY2025 sales (JPY bn): 80.5; Share of total: 7.1%; Nature: Equipment and semi-consumables - **Services & others (support services, consumables, software, other)** — FY2025 sales (JPY bn): 109.2; Share of total: 9.7%; Nature: Recurring service, consumables, licences **Total:** FY2025 sales (JPY bn): 1,128.6; Share of total: 100.0% Licensing and subscription revenue is not reported separately. **Value-chain position.** Advantest is a back-end and test-stage equipment supplier. It sits downstream of front-end wafer-fab tools (lithography, deposition, etch), alongside probers and probe cards at wafer sort, and alongside packaging and assembly equipment at final test. Joining Applied Materials' EPIC platform in April 2026, as the first ATE company to do so, signals a strategy to link front-end process development with back-end test data. **Customer types and end-markets.** In FY2025, 95% of SoC tester sales went to computing and communications devices and 5% to automotive, industrial, consumer and display-driver ICs. The FY2026 forecast is 90/10. Memory tester sales were 90% DRAM (driven by HBM and high-performance DRAM) and 10% non-volatile memory in FY2025, moving to 85/15 in the FY2026 forecast. Mature-node automotive and industrial demand stayed soft through FY2025.

Kokusai Electric is a dedicated front-end semiconductor equipment maker focused on thin-film deposition and film treatment. Its core franchise is batch processing, in which vertical furnaces process dozens of wafers at a time. Its batch ALD technology pairs atomic-layer film quality with the throughput of batch production, and its share of the batch ALD-compatible equipment market exceeded 80% in calendar 2025 on the company's estimate. Gartner-based data placed it first in batch deposition equipment that year. The company sells to leading memory and logic manufacturers, with Samsung Electronics and TSMC each above 10% of FY2026 revenue. Its installed base supports a service arm covering parts, maintenance, repair, relocation, upgrades, and used and legacy tools. Spun out of Hitachi Kokusai Electric under KKR in 2018 and listed in 2023, it is now without a controlling shareholder. It expects record revenue of JPY 340 bn in FY2027. **The company's own description.** The FY2026 Annual Securities Report describes a group of the company and seven consolidated subsidiaries, operating globally around the development, manufacture, sale and maintenance of semiconductor manufacturing equipment. It calls the deposition process its focus and says it holds one of the world's leading market shares in batch deposition equipment and treatment (film property improvement) equipment. The corporate slogan is "Technology & Tai-wa for Tomorrow", where Tai-wa means dialogue, and the company describes dialogue as the power to discover problems and technology as the power to solve them. **Independent characterization.** Kokusai Electric is a focused specialist in an industry led by broad-line platform vendors. It competes in a narrow part of wafer fab equipment (WFE): vertical batch furnaces, batch ALD, single-wafer plasma treatment and annealing. Its economics depend on winning a process of record (POR), the customer's qualification of a tool for a specific step. Once a POR is won, tool switching is costly, and the annual report itself says customers tend to stay with a chosen vendor. Device scaling helps the company because 3D NAND, advanced DRAM and gate-all-around (GAA) logic all raise surface area and aspect ratios, which increases the number of steps where conformal films are needed at high throughput. **Business model.** Revenue comes from two business units inside one reportable segment. **Equipment business:** one-off capital sales of 300mm and 200mm batch and single-wafer tools, plus upgrade modifications and used tools under the classification adopted in FY2027. **Service business:** recurring revenue from parts and consumables, maintenance services, paid repairs, relocation and other modification work. The company has no disclosed subscription or licensing revenue line. Contract options in service include on-site inventory agreements, availability guarantees and full-time engineer arrangements. Contract liabilities reached JPY 34.8 bn at March 2026, up from JPY 22.5 bn a year earlier, largely on advances for modification projects (FY2026 Annual Securities Report). **Value chain position.** The company sells front-end equipment directly to device manufacturers and buys components and materials through a multi-vendor supply base. Production takes place in Japan (Toyama and Tonami) and South Korea (Cheonan and Pyeongtaek). Sales and field service run through subsidiaries near customer fabs. Its own products compete in deposition and treatment; it does not supply lithography, etch or inspection tools, though its Japanese subsidiary sells resistivity measurement systems and ultrasonic units, including units for other equipment makers' cleaning tools. **Customers.** Customers are memory makers, foundries, logic manufacturers, power-device makers and silicon-carbide producers. The annual report names Samsung Electronics, TSMC and, in FY2025, CXMT as customers above 10% of revenue. **Samsung Electronics:** FY2024: 35774; FY2025: 31806; FY2026: 51258 **Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing:** FY2025: 30827; FY2026: 31495 **CXMT Corporation:** FY2024: 26153; FY2025: 48759 Samsung represented 21.8% of FY2026 revenue and TSMC 13.4%, a combined 35.2%. CXMT dropped below the 10% disclosure threshold in FY2026 after contributing 20.4% in FY2025. Blank cells show years in which a customer fell below that threshold. **End markets.** Generative AI servers are the main current driver through high-performance logic, DRAM and increasingly NAND. Consumer electronics, automotive and industrial demand remained in a moderate recovery in the August 2026 briefing. Mature-node logic and power devices, including silicon carbide, are served mainly by 200mm tools. **Relevance to maintenance and refurbishment services.** Service delivery combines parts centers around the world, stationed engineers, remote support through wearable cameras, and training centers. Refurbishment offerings include a restoration service that returns equipment to a like-new condition, controller replacement, robot upgrades, and used tools with manufacturer warranty. Cumulative product shipments stood at 19,473 units at March 2025, and vertical equipment shipments passed 20,000 units during FY2026. That base is the addressable market for these services.

SCREEN Holdings is a Kyoto-based maker of capital equipment for the semiconductor industry, and the world's largest supplier of wafer cleaning equipment. Its Semiconductor Production Equipment (SPE) business made about 80% of FY2026 net sales of ¥605.7 billion and 100% of segment profit. SCREEN sells single-wafer, batch and scrubber cleaning systems, along with coat/develop tracks, flash-lamp annealers, metrology/inspection tools and a growing advanced-packaging range (direct-imaging lithography, panel-level coaters and, since the Nikon transaction, wafer bonding). These go to every leading foundry, logic and memory manufacturer. A post-sales services business built on a large installed base adds recurring revenue: it reached about ¥100 billion in FY2026 and is guided to ¥125.7 billion for FY2027. Three smaller segments, Graphic Arts (inkjet presses and CTP), Display Production Equipment and Coater (FT) and PCB-Related Equipment (PE), are applications of the same core strengths in surface processing, direct imaging and image processing. SCREEN pairs an operating margin of about 20% with an equity ratio of 67%, net cash of ¥221 billion and a Management Grand Design target of ¥1 trillion in sales by FY2033. As a result, its equity behaves like a high-beta proxy for wet-process WFE intensity. --- ### What the company does SCREEN is a pure-play capital-equipment company organised as a holding company with operating subsidiaries. Most of its value comes from wet processing of semiconductor wafers: removing particles, residues, native oxides and photoresist between the roughly 200 process steps of a leading-edge device, and wet-etching films selectively. Cleaning is repeated more often than any other step in the fab flow. Each new node, gate-all-around (GAA) transistor architecture, high-aspect-ratio 3D NAND structure and HBM stack adds cleaning steps and tightens defect specifications, so cleaning intensity per wafer start rises over time. Around this core, the group applies three base technologies, which it describes as surface processing, direct imaging and image processing, to adjacent markets: - **Semiconductor Production Equipment (SPE)**, through SCREEN Semiconductor Solutions Co., Ltd. ("SCREEN SPE"): wafer cleaning, wet etch, coat/develop, annealing, metrology/inspection, advanced-packaging lithography and bonding, plus post-sales services (parts, upgrades, field service, refurbishment). - **Graphic Arts Equipment (GA)**, through SCREEN Graphic Solutions Co., Ltd.: high-speed inkjet presses for commercial, transactional, label and flexible-packaging printing; computer-to-plate (CTP) systems; prepress workflow software; and colour-management technology (CGS ORIS). - **Display Production Equipment and Coater (FT)**, through SCREEN Finetech Solutions Co., Ltd.: coater/developers and wet processing for LCD and OLED panel production, plus slit and roll-to-roll coaters for film formation, including energy-device (battery, fuel cell) applications. - **PCB-Related Equipment (PE)**, through SCREEN PE Solutions Co., Ltd.: direct-imaging (maskless) exposure systems and inspection equipment for printed circuit boards and package substrates. **Other:** life-science instruments (high-throughput cell imaging, microelectrode arrays), cancer diagnostics (Kyo Diagnostics), software and AI-enabled document and search systems, printed products, and group shared services. ### Company's own description In its FY2026 financial report and Fact Book, SCREEN describes itself as a group offering wafer processing solutions to the global semiconductor market, with the SPE business, the core of the group at about 80% of sales, covering development, manufacturing, sales and maintenance services of semiconductor production equipment, its mainstay being single-wafer cleaning equipment used in foundry, logic and memory. The SPE subsidiary states that SCREEN consistently holds the No. 1 global share in wafer cleaning equipment (company research) and offers lithography, annealing and measurement/inspection systems. ### Business and revenue model | Revenue type | Description | Indicative scale | |---|---|---| | Equipment (product) sales | Capital equipment sold per tool, recognised on installation/acceptance under SCREEN's revenue-recognition policy | About 80% of group sales | | Post-sales services | Spare parts, consumables, field service, upgrades, refurbishment and relocation for the installed base | About ¥100 billion in FY2026 (implied by FY2027 guidance of ¥125.7 billion, +26%); record ¥33.9 billion in Q2 FY2027 (+50% YoY) | | Software and workflow | GA prepress workflow (EQUIOS), colour management (CGS ORIS), AI and document software in Other | Small | | Consumables | Inkjet inks for GA presses | Small, recurring | | Licensing | Not a material revenue line | — | **Equipment (product) sales:** Description: Capital equipment sold per tool, recognised on installation/acceptance under SCREEN's revenue-recognition policy; Indicative scale: About 80% of group sales **Post-sales services:** Description: Spare parts, consumables, field service, upgrades, refurbishment and relocation for the installed base; Indicative scale: About ¥100 billion in FY2026 (implied by FY2027 guidance of ¥125.7 billion, +26%); record ¥33.9 billion in Q2 FY2027 (+50% YoY) **Software and workflow:** Description: GA prepress workflow (EQUIOS), colour management (CGS ORIS), AI and document software in Other; Indicative scale: Small **Consumables:** Description: Inkjet inks for GA presses; Indicative scale: Small, recurring **Licensing:** Description: Not a material revenue line; Indicative scale: — SCREEN does not run subscriptions. The services line is recurring only in the sense of an installed-base annuity, but it is the fastest-growing and among the most profitable revenue streams in the group. ### Value-chain position SCREEN is a Tier-1 front-end and back-end equipment supplier, selling directly to device makers (integrated device manufacturers, foundries, memory makers, OSATs and panel makers). Upstream, it buys precision mechatronic components, fluid-handling parts, PCBs, control panels and robotics from Japanese and global suppliers. In Q2 FY2027 management flagged supply pressure in PCBs and control panels. Downstream, its tools sit in the cleaning/surface-preparation module of the fab and must be qualified at each process step, which makes switching costly once a tool is part of a customer's process of record. ### Customer types and end-markets | End-market | Customer type | Key demand driver | |---|---|---| | Leading-edge foundry/logic | TSMC (¥88,507 million, 14.6% of FY2026 net sales), other foundries, logic IDMs | AI accelerators, GAA nodes, backside power delivery | | Memory (DRAM/HBM, NAND) | DRAM and NAND makers in Korea, Japan, US, China | HBM and AI-server DRAM; NAND layer-count transitions | | Mature-node and power devices | Chinese foundries, power-semiconductor makers (SiC/GaN) | Localisation in China; automotive and industrial electrification | | Advanced packaging | Foundries, OSATs, substrate makers | Chiplets, 2.5D/3D integration, panel-level packaging, hybrid bonding | | Commercial and packaging printing | Printers, converters, label makers | Shift from offset to digital inkjet | | Displays | OLED and LCD panel makers (China, Korea) | IT-size OLED investment | | PCB and package substrates | PCB and IC-substrate makers | AI servers, high-density interconnect | | Life science | Pharma, academia, clinical diagnostics | Drug discovery and diagnostics | **Leading-edge foundry/logic:** Customer type: TSMC (¥88,507 million, 14.6% of FY2026 net sales), other foundries, logic IDMs; Key demand driver: AI accelerators, GAA nodes, backside power delivery **Memory (DRAM/HBM, NAND):** Customer type: DRAM and NAND makers in Korea, Japan, US, China; Key demand driver: HBM and AI-server DRAM; NAND layer-count transitions **Mature-node and power devices:** Customer type: Chinese foundries, power-semiconductor makers (SiC/GaN); Key demand driver: Localisation in China; automotive and industrial electrification **Advanced packaging:** Customer type: Foundries, OSATs, substrate makers; Key demand driver: Chiplets, 2.5D/3D integration, panel-level packaging, hybrid bonding **Commercial and packaging printing:** Customer type: Printers, converters, label makers; Key demand driver: Shift from offset to digital inkjet **Displays:** Customer type: OLED and LCD panel makers (China, Korea); Key demand driver: IT-size OLED investment **PCB and package substrates:** Customer type: PCB and IC-substrate makers; Key demand driver: AI servers, high-density interconnect **Life science:** Customer type: Pharma, academia, clinical diagnostics; Key demand driver: Drug discovery and diagnostics ### Independent characterisation SCREEN is a focused, cleaning-centric WFE vendor. It runs a structural growth engine (cleaning steps per wafer, AI-driven capex, post-sales) inside a cyclical shell (customer capex timing, China policy). The group has three distinguishing traits. First, it leads a niche: wet cleaning and surface preparation is a multi-billion-dollar segment in which three vendors (SCREEN, TEL and Lam) hold more than 80% of single-wafer cleaning. Second, its customer and geographic mix is concentrated: China plus Taiwan made 60% of FY2026 sales, and one customer made 14.6%. Third, its earnings are highly sensitive to project timing, because large tools are recognised on installation, so revenue shifts between quarters (as in Q2 FY2026, Q3 FY2026 and Q1 FY2027) cause the volatility the market tends to over-penalise. Beyond SPE, the conglomerate tail (GA, FT, PE, Other) is about 20% of sales but only about 10% of segment operating income before corporate costs. It acts as an option portfolio rather than a second engine.

ASM International is the world's leading supplier of single-wafer atomic layer deposition (ALD) equipment. It held over 55% of that market in 2024 and has a fast-growing position in silicon epitaxy (Epi), with about 25% leading-edge Epi share in 2024. Both technologies have become more critical with each step from FinFET to gate-all-around (GAA) transistors, and in advanced DRAM and high-bandwidth memory (HBM). The group designs, makes, sells and services front-end wafer-processing tools: single-wafer ALD and PEALD, epitaxy, PECVD, vertical furnaces (LPCVD, diffusion and oxidation), and silicon carbide (SiC) epitaxy through LPE. In December 2025 it added chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) for compound semiconductors through Axus Technology. Revenue reached a record €3.17 billion in 2025, with a record 51.8% gross margin, and it is on track for about €4.26 billion in 2026. Management expects to pass €5.7 billion in 2027, the revenue target originally set for 2030. ASM has a net cash balance sheet with no financial debt. It also holds a roughly 25% equity-accounted stake in back-end equipment maker ASMPT, carried at €845 million at YE2025. --- ### What the company does ASM makes deposition equipment: the machines that lay down ultra-thin films of conductors, dielectrics and crystalline silicon on 300mm (and 150/200mm) wafers in the front end of chip manufacturing. Its core technology is atomic layer deposition. ALD builds a film one atomic layer at a time through self-limiting surface reactions, which gives angstrom-level thickness control and near-perfect conformality over 3D structures. As transistors moved from planar to FinFET and now to GAA nanosheets, and DRAM moves toward 4F² and vertical architectures, the number of ALD and Epi layers per wafer has risen. ASM's served market has therefore grown faster than wafer fab equipment (WFE) overall. ASM describes itself as a leading provider of wafer-processing equipment to the world's largest chipmakers. It names its focus areas as deposition, the largest portfolio of single-wafer ALD applications, a growing share in silicon epitaxy, and selective growth in vertical furnaces, PECVD and SiC epitaxy (Annual Report 2025 highlights). The company's strategic label is "Growth through Innovation". ### Independent characterisation ASM is a focused, high-margin, mid-cap specialist in a WFE industry dominated by broad-line suppliers (Applied Materials, Lam Research, Tokyo Electron, KLA, ASML). Its position rests on three structural features: 1. **Process-of-record incumbency at the leading edge.** Once an ALD or Epi layer is qualified on a node at a leading logic foundry, the tool stays in place for the life of that node and usually wins the next node's equivalent layer. ASM's share of layers in leading-edge logic/foundry rose with every node, and its leading-edge Epi share went from 14% at 7nm to 22% at 3nm and 33% at 2nm (Investor Day 2025). 2. **Technology inflections that expand served available market (SAM).** First-generation GAA (2nm) added about US$400 million to ASM's SAM compared with 3nm FinFET. The move to 1.4nm is expected to add a further US$450–500 million. In DRAM, the 6F² to 4F² transition and FinFET in CMOS periphery are expected to add US$400–450 million of SAM from node D1d to D0b (Investor Day 2025). 3. **A growing installed base that feeds a recurring services business.** Spares & services (S&S) grew 18% at constant currency in 2025 to €715.7 million, 22.6% of revenue, helped by outcome-based service contracts. ### Business and revenue model | Revenue stream | Content | FY2024 (€M) | FY2025 (€M) | Share of FY2025 revenue | |---|---|---|---|---| | Equipment | New systems: ALD, PEALD, Epi, PECVD, vertical furnace, SiC Epi, CMP. Royalty and licence income tied to equipment is included | 2303.3 | 2457.5 | 77.4% | | Spares & services | Spare parts, field service, upgrades, outcome-based service contracts and, from 2025, installation and qualification revenue | 629.4 | 715.7 | 22.6% | | Total | — | 2932.7 | 3173.2 | 100% | **Equipment:** Content: New systems: ALD, PEALD, Epi, PECVD, vertical furnace, SiC Epi, CMP. Royalty and licence income tied to equipment is included; FY2024 (€M): 2303.3; FY2025 (€M): 2457.5; Share of FY2025 revenue: 77.4% **Spares & services:** Content: Spare parts, field service, upgrades, outcome-based service contracts and, from 2025, installation and qualification revenue; FY2024 (€M): 629.4; FY2025 (€M): 715.7; Share of FY2025 revenue: 22.6% **Total:** FY2024 (€M): 2932.7; FY2025 (€M): 3173.2; Share of FY2025 revenue: 100% The model is capital-equipment sales plus a recurring service tail. There is no material subscription or licensing business. Systems are priced at multiple millions of euros each, and per-tool prices are not publicly disclosed. Revenue is recognised mainly at shipment or acceptance. Large customer prepayments (contract liabilities of €589 million at 30 June 2025) are a key source of working-capital funding. ### Value-chain position and customers ASM sits in tier one of the semiconductor equipment chain. It sells directly to chipmakers and buys precision components (valves, RF generators, vacuum hardware, chambers, robotics) from a sub-supplier base in Asia, the US and Europe. Its customers are: **Advanced logic/foundry:** the main growth engine in 2024–2026, driven by 2nm GAA capacity and, from H2 2026, first 1.4nm pilot and production investments. **Mature logic/foundry:** much of it Chinese. China was more than 30% of total ASM revenue in 2025. **Memory:** DRAM, especially HBM-related DRAM. Memory was 16% of equipment sales in 2025. **Power/analog/wafer:** SiC, silicon power, analog, RF and wafer manufacturers. This segment was in a cyclical downturn in 2024–2025 and began recovering in 2026. ASM does not name its largest customers. The leading-edge logic/foundry segment is highly concentrated among a small number of global chipmakers.

ASML is the only company in the world that makes extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) lithography systems, the tools that print the finest circuit patterns on leading-edge logic and DRAM chips. It is also the largest supplier of deep-ultraviolet (DUV) immersion and dry scanners. It sells into every major chipmaker: TSMC, Samsung, SK hynix, Intel, Micron and the main Chinese foundries and memory makers. Around the scanners it sells computational-lithography software, optical and e-beam metrology and inspection, and a fast-growing Installed Base Management business covering service, upgrades, field options and refurbishment. Its lead rests on four decades of co-development with Carl Zeiss SMT for optics, its own Cymer light sources, and a supply chain of about 5,100 suppliers. The AI investment cycle has turned it into a capacity-constrained growth company: 2026 sales are guided at €44–45 billion, already the low end of its 2030 ambition. The main risk is geopolitical: export controls already block sales of EUV tools to China and could extend to DUV immersion and to servicing. --- ### What the company does ASML designs, develops, integrates, sells and services the photolithography systems chipmakers use to project circuit patterns onto silicon wafers. Lithography is the step that sets the smallest feature a fab can print. It is also the most capital-intensive process step and usually the critical path in a fab ramp. A leading-edge logic or DRAM wafer passes through lithography dozens of times, and each pass needs a scanner to align the new layer to the ones below with nanometre-level overlay accuracy. ASML's systems handle this patterning step across the range of wavelengths: **EUV (13.5 nm):** the NXE platform (0.33 numerical aperture, "Low-NA") and the EXE platform (0.55 NA, "High-NA"). **DUV immersion (ArF, 193 nm with water):** the TWINSCAN NXT:2000-series. **DUV dry (ArF and KrF, 193/248 nm) and i-line (365 nm):** TWINSCAN NXT and XT systems for less critical layers, mature nodes, power, analog, sensors and, increasingly, advanced packaging. ASML's own description, repeated in its 2025 filings and press releases, is that it is a leading supplier to the semiconductor industry providing chipmakers with hardware, software and services to mass-produce the patterns of integrated circuits. A more independent description is that ASML is a systems integrator and technology orchestrator with a de facto monopoly at the leading edge. It sources about 80% of its bill of materials from suppliers, including sole-source projection optics from Carl Zeiss SMT, in which it holds a 24.9% stake. It owns the architecture, the system integration, the light source (through Cymer), the computational and metrology "holistic lithography" loop, and the customer relationship. ### Business and revenue model ASML reports total net sales in two streams. 1. **Net system sales** (€24.5 billion in 2025, 75% of total) are new and used lithography systems plus metrology and inspection systems, recognised mainly on shipment or customer acceptance. EUV made up 48% of system sales in 2025, up from 38% in 2024. Average selling prices are high: a Low-NA EUV system recognised in Q2 2026 averaged about €230 million, and High-NA systems are widely reported at about US$400 million. 2. **Installed Base Management (IBM)** (€8.2 billion in 2025, 25% of total) covers service contracts, spare parts, field upgrades (for example productivity packages that add wafers per hour to NXE:3800E tools), field options, relocations and the refurbishment and resale of used systems. IBM is recurring, grows with the installed base, carries high margins on upgrades, and is less cyclical than system sales. It is expected to grow about 50% in 2026. There is no subscription or licensing line in the reported numbers. Software, mainly computational lithography and process-control applications, is sold with systems or as options and is reported inside system or IBM sales. Pricing is value-based: management has said explicitly that it follows a value-based pricing concept, with ASPs tied to customers' productivity gains such as fewer multi-patterning steps and more wafers per hour. ### Value chain position ASML sits upstream of the integrated device makers (IDMs) and foundries and downstream of a deep, specialised supply base. Key suppliers include Zeiss (optics), its own subsidiary Cymer (light sources), VDL, Prodrive and other Brainport-region contract manufacturers, and Trumpf (the CO₂ drive lasers for EUV plasma sources). Within wafer-fab equipment (WFE), lithography is the largest single category. It is complemented by the deposition, etch, clean and process-control tools of Applied Materials, Lam Research, Tokyo Electron and KLA. ### Customer types and end-markets | Customer type | Examples | What they buy | |---|---|---| | Leading-edge logic foundries | TSMC, Samsung Foundry, Intel Foundry, Rapidus | Low-NA EUV, High-NA EUV (Intel, Samsung), immersion DUV, metrology/inspection | | DRAM / HBM makers | SK hynix, Samsung Memory, Micron, CXMT, Nanya | EUV (rising layer counts in 1b/1c DRAM), immersion DUV | | NAND makers | Kioxia, Samsung, SK hynix, Micron, YMTC | Mainly DUV (KrF/ArF), some immersion | | Mature and specialty logic | SMIC, Hua Hong, GlobalFoundries, UMC, power/analog fabs | DUV immersion and dry, i-line, refurbished systems | | Advanced packaging | OSATs and IDMs with packaging lines | TWINSCAN XT:260 i-line packaging scanner | **Leading-edge logic foundries:** Examples: TSMC, Samsung Foundry, Intel Foundry, Rapidus; What they buy: Low-NA EUV, High-NA EUV (Intel, Samsung), immersion DUV, metrology/inspection **DRAM / HBM makers:** Examples: SK hynix, Samsung Memory, Micron, CXMT, Nanya; What they buy: EUV (rising layer counts in 1b/1c DRAM), immersion DUV **NAND makers:** Examples: Kioxia, Samsung, SK hynix, Micron, YMTC; What they buy: Mainly DUV (KrF/ArF), some immersion **Mature and specialty logic:** Examples: SMIC, Hua Hong, GlobalFoundries, UMC, power/analog fabs; What they buy: DUV immersion and dry, i-line, refurbished systems **Advanced packaging:** Examples: OSATs and IDMs with packaging lines; What they buy: TWINSCAN XT:260 i-line packaging scanner End-market exposure is tilting toward memory. In 2026, memory-related net system sales are expected to grow about 75% and logic about 10%. System sales were split 54% logic / 46% memory in Q3 2026, 51/49 in Q2 and 49/51 in Q1. The end demand behind this is AI data-centre compute (accelerators, HBM and high-performance DRAM), premium smartphones, PCs, automotive and industrial chips.

Tokyo Electron is Japan's largest semiconductor equipment maker and one of the four or five global companies that set the pace of wafer-fab equipment (WFE) technology. It sells front-end tools for coating and developing photoresist, plasma etching, thermal and single-wafer deposition, wafer cleaning, wafer probing and, increasingly, wafer bonding and laser processing for advanced packaging. In coater/developers it holds a near-monopoly, and in EUV-lithography tracks it is effectively the sole supplier. Its customers are the leading logic foundries, DRAM and NAND makers, and a broad base of Chinese mature-node fabs. About 90% of sales go outside Japan. A Field Solutions business for parts, service, upgrades and refurbished tools, built on an installed base of more than 90,000 systems, supplies a growing recurring layer. In FY2026 TEL booked record sales of ¥2.44 trillion. Its first full-year forecast for FY2027 calls for ¥3.7 trillion in sales and operating income above ¥1 trillion for the first time, on the back of AI-driven investment in advanced logic, HBM/DRAM and 3D NAND. ### What the company does Tokyo Electron designs, develops, manufactures, sells and services production equipment used to fabricate semiconductors. Its tools cover most of the non-lithography steps in front-end-of-line and middle-of-line processing: - coating and developing photoresist around the scanner; - etching patterns into films; - depositing films by batch thermal processes, chemical vapour deposition and atomic layer deposition; - removing particles and residues; - testing finished dies on the wafer with probers. TEL also supplies wafer-to-wafer and die-level bonding, laser lift-off and thinning equipment for 3D integration and advanced packaging, and a small line of flat-panel display (FPD) production equipment. TEL describes itself in its Japanese securities report as a group operating in the single business of semiconductor production equipment. It covers research, development, manufacturing, sales and maintenance, and FPD equipment is reported within that segment. Development and production sit in Japanese manufacturing subsidiaries: Tokyo Electron Technology Solutions for deposition and thermal tools, Tokyo Electron Kyushu for coater/developers, cleaning and bonding, and Tokyo Electron Miyagi for plasma etch. TEL Manufacturing and Engineering of America produces surface-preparation tools. Field engineering is delivered through Tokyo Electron FE in Japan and regional subsidiaries such as Tokyo Electron America, Tokyo Electron Korea, Tokyo Electron Taiwan and Tokyo Electron Europe. Logistics, facilities and insurance functions sit in Tokyo Electron BP. ### Business and revenue model | Revenue stream | Nature | FY2026 sales (¥bn) | Share of total | |---|---|---|---| | New equipment (SPE and FPD) | Capital equipment sold per tool, recognised mainly on customer acceptance | 1817.3 | 74.4% | | Field Solutions | Spare parts, service contracts, upgrades and modifications, used and refurbished equipment | 626.3 | 25.6% | | Total | — | 2443.5 | 100% | **New equipment (SPE and FPD):** Nature: Capital equipment sold per tool, recognised mainly on customer acceptance; FY2026 sales (¥bn): 1817.3; Share of total: 74.4% **Field Solutions:** Nature: Spare parts, service contracts, upgrades and modifications, used and refurbished equipment; FY2026 sales (¥bn): 626.3; Share of total: 25.6% **Total:** FY2026 sales (¥bn): 2443.5; Share of total: 100% The model is product-led and cyclical. Tools are sold to fab owners, and revenue is recognised mostly on customer acceptance, so quarterly results swing with acceptance timing. The fourth quarter, which contains the fiscal year-end acceptance month, is usually the largest. Field Solutions is the counter-cyclical layer. Its sales rose from ¥456.1 billion in FY2022 to ¥626.3 billion in FY2026, and reached ¥188.0 billion in the June 2026 quarter alone. It monetises the installed base through consumable parts, service contracts, productivity and node-extension upgrades, and resale of certified used tools. TEL does not run subscription or licensing businesses of any significance. Software and data services, such as remote diagnostics and process-control software, are bundled into equipment and service sales. ### Value-chain position TEL is a tier-1 capital-goods supplier to integrated device manufacturers, foundries and memory makers. Upstream it depends on a deep Japanese and global sub-supplier base: vacuum pumps, RF generators, valves, robotics, ceramics, quartz, specialty materials and precision machining. Downstream it sells directly to fab operators, without distributors. It co-develops processes with leading customers years before high-volume manufacturing, typically three or four technology generations ahead, and that early engagement is the source of most of its competitive moat. ### Customer types and end-markets | Customer type | Representative customers | Main TEL tools | Demand driver | |---|---|---|---| | Leading-edge logic and foundry | TSMC, Samsung Foundry, Intel, Rapidus | EUV tracks, etch, deposition, cleaning, bonding | 3 nm, 2 nm and 1.4 nm ramps, gate-all-around transistors, backside power | | DRAM and HBM | Samsung, SK hynix, Micron, CXMT | Etch, deposition, tracks, bonding | AI servers, HBM stacking | | NAND flash | Samsung, SK hynix, Kioxia, Micron, YMTC | High-aspect-ratio etch (including cryogenic), deposition | Layer-count increases, enterprise SSDs for AI | | Mature-node and specialty fabs | Chinese foundries and IDMs, power and analog makers | Thermal, deposition, cleaning, tracks | Localisation in China, automotive, industrial | | Advanced packaging | Foundries, OSATs, memory makers | Wafer bonders, laser lift-off, thinning | Chiplets, hybrid bonding, HBM | | Display makers | Panel producers | FPD etch/ash and inkjet systems | OLED investment | **Leading-edge logic and foundry:** Representative customers: TSMC, Samsung Foundry, Intel, Rapidus; Main TEL tools: EUV tracks, etch, deposition, cleaning, bonding; Demand driver: 3 nm, 2 nm and 1.4 nm ramps, gate-all-around transistors, backside power **DRAM and HBM:** Representative customers: Samsung, SK hynix, Micron, CXMT; Main TEL tools: Etch, deposition, tracks, bonding; Demand driver: AI servers, HBM stacking **NAND flash:** Representative customers: Samsung, SK hynix, Kioxia, Micron, YMTC; Main TEL tools: High-aspect-ratio etch (including cryogenic), deposition; Demand driver: Layer-count increases, enterprise SSDs for AI **Mature-node and specialty fabs:** Representative customers: Chinese foundries and IDMs, power and analog makers; Main TEL tools: Thermal, deposition, cleaning, tracks; Demand driver: Localisation in China, automotive, industrial **Advanced packaging:** Representative customers: Foundries, OSATs, memory makers; Main TEL tools: Wafer bonders, laser lift-off, thinning; Demand driver: Chiplets, hybrid bonding, HBM **Display makers:** Representative customers: Panel producers; Main TEL tools: FPD etch/ash and inkjet systems; Demand driver: OLED investment ### Independent characterisation TEL is best understood as a "process-breadth" toolmaker. It has a narrow lithography-adjacent monopoly in tracks, top-tier positions in etch and thermal deposition, and an expanding presence in bonding. Earnings power rests on three things: 1. **Process-step intensity.** Each new node and memory generation adds deposition, etch and patterning steps per wafer. 2. **Customer concentration.** A handful of leading-edge customers decide most of incremental WFE spending. 3. **China exposure.** China was 41.7% of sales in FY2025, 34.1% in FY2026, and is guided to the low 30s in FY2027. It is both a large profit pool and the main policy risk. TEL is structurally net-cash. It returns about half of net income as dividends and adds opportunistic buybacks, and it has been raising R&D toward ¥300 billion or more a year to defend share in etch and deposition against Applied Materials and Lam Research.

Lam Research is the world's third-largest wafer fabrication equipment (WFE) supplier by revenue and the leading specialist in plasma etch and a top-tier supplier of deposition, the two process steps that build and sculpt the three-dimensional structures inside modern chips. Its tools are installed in practically every leading-edge fab, and its installed base of more than 100,000 process chambers feeds a large, recurring Customer Support Business Group (CSBG) that sells spares, upgrades, services, refurbished and legacy-node tools, and equipment-intelligence software. FY2026 revenue reached a record USD 23.2 billion (+26%), with a 50.5% GAAP gross margin, 35.3% operating margin and USD 7.27 billion of net income. Demand is being driven by AI-related investment in leading-edge logic (gate-all-around transistors, backside power), high-bandwidth and advanced DRAM, NAND layer-count upgrades and advanced packaging — all of which raise etch and deposition intensity per wafer. China exposure (34% of FY2026 revenue) and U.S. export controls remain the principal structural risks. ### What the company does Lam designs, manufactures, markets, refurbishes and services semiconductor processing equipment used to fabricate integrated circuits. Chipmaking repeats a sequence of core steps hundreds of times per wafer; Lam's equipment adds thin films of conducting or insulating material (deposition), removes material selectively to form patterns and high-aspect-ratio structures (etch), cleans wafers and wafer edges between steps (clean), and — newly — forms and develops EUV photoresist in a fully dry, vacuum-based process (dry resist). ### The company's own description (FY2026 Form 10-K) Lam describes itself as a global supplier of innovative wafer fabrication equipment and services to the semiconductor industry, with core competencies in nanoscale manufacturing enablement, chemistry, plasma and fluidics, advanced systems engineering and a broad range of operational disciplines. Its core technical competency is integrating hardware, process, materials, software and process control to deliver results on the wafer. Management attributes its opportunity for sustainable differentiation to five factors: sustained R&D investment across sustaining engineering, product and process development and concept/feasibility work; cycles of learning from its broad installed base; close-to-customer collaboration with ecosystem partners; investment in portfolio breadth aimed at technology inflections; and multi-product solutions that raise the value of Lam's offering. ### Business and revenue model | Revenue stream (FY2026, USD M) | Amount | Share of revenue | What it contains | |---|---|---|---| | Systems revenue | 14885 | 64.1% | New leading-edge deposition, etch, clean and other wafer-fabrication systems | | Customer support-related revenue and other (CSBG) | 8347 | 35.9% | Field service, spares, upgrades, equipment-intelligence services and Reliant new/refurbished non-leading-edge equipment | | Total | 23233 | 100.0% | — | **Systems revenue:** Amount: 14885; Share of revenue: 64.1%; What it contains: New leading-edge deposition, etch, clean and other wafer-fabrication systems **Customer support-related revenue and other (CSBG):** Amount: 8347; Share of revenue: 35.9%; What it contains: Field service, spares, upgrades, equipment-intelligence services and Reliant new/refurbished non-leading-edge equipment **Total:** Amount: 23233; Share of revenue: 100.0% The model is predominantly product-plus-service. Systems are sold per tool, generally recognized at shipment or delivery (Japan shipments are recognized on customer acceptance), and Lam provides a standard warranty. CSBG revenue is recurring and tied to the size and utilization of the installed base; services are recognized over time, usually over contracts of one year or less. There is no material licensing or subscription revenue line, although equipment-intelligence analytics and software are sold within CSBG. List pricing is not publicly disclosed; management has cited pricing actions as a contributor to the 2026 gross-margin expansion. ### Value-chain position Lam sits in the capital-equipment tier of the semiconductor supply chain, upstream of chipmakers (foundries, memory makers and integrated device manufacturers) and downstream of thousands of component, subsystem, gas, materials and contract-manufacturing suppliers. Assembly and testing take place largely in cleanroom environments in the United States, Malaysia, Korea, Taiwan and Austria, supplemented by outsourced manufacturing, warehousing and logistics. ### Customers and end markets | End market (share of systems revenue, %) | FY2024 | FY2025 | FY2026 | |---|---|---|---| | Foundry | 40 | 45 | 54 | | Memory (DRAM + NAND) | 42 | 42 | 39 | | Logic / integrated device manufacturing | 18 | 13 | 7 | Customers are leading memory, foundry and IDM chipmakers. Micron Technology, Samsung Electronics, SK hynix and TSMC were the most significant customers in each of FY2024–FY2026. In FY2026 four customers individually exceeded 10% of revenue (approximately 16%, 15%, 12% and 12%); in FY2025 two did (17% and 15%); in FY2024 one did (17%). **Foundry:** FY2024: 40; FY2025: 45; FY2026: 54 **Memory (DRAM + NAND):** FY2024: 42; FY2025: 42; FY2026: 39 **Logic / integrated device manufacturing:** FY2024: 18; FY2025: 13; FY2026: 7 End-device markets reached through those customers include AI and cloud data centers, smartphones, PCs, automotive, industrial and data storage. Lam also serves wafer-level and panel-level advanced packaging, CMOS image sensors, MEMS, power and other specialty devices. ### Relevance to fab-infrastructure service and software markets Lam is a direct participant in several adjacent fab-infrastructure markets. Its CSBG field-service organization and spares programs constitute one of the largest equipment-maintenance businesses in the industry; Equipment Intelligence® services and fleet analytics address predictive and condition-based maintenance; the Reliant® line supplies refurbished and new non-leading-edge tools; the Semiverse™ Solutions portfolio (built on Coventor's SEMulator3D® virtual-fabrication software) provides process modeling and virtual-fab "digital twin" capabilities; and Lam's global lab network performs process development side by side with customers. ### Independent characterization Lam is best understood as a high-intensity, high-share specialist rather than a broad-line supplier. It does not compete in lithography, and has only small positions in inspection/metrology, ion implant and thermal processing. That narrower scope concentrates exposure on etch and deposition, which are the steps whose intensity rises most as devices go vertical (3D NAND, gate-all-around, stacked DRAM and HBM, hybrid bonding). The large, sticky installed base converts each up-cycle into a decade of service and upgrade revenue, which dampens cyclicality; FY2024's 14.5% revenue decline was absorbed with a 28.6% operating margin. The flip side is concentration: four customers supply more than half of revenue, and China contributed 34% in FY2026.

Sanki Engineering is one of Japan's four largest specialist mechanical-electrical-plumbing (MEP) and HVAC contractors. Its FY2026 revenue of ¥254.7 billion puts it close to Daidan and behind Takasago Thermal Engineering and Taikisha. It started as Mitsui & Co.'s machinery arm and keeps strong links to Mitsui group companies and large Japanese manufacturers. Its edge comes from combining office-building HVAC and sanitation, industrial cleanroom air-conditioning, electrical works, materials-handling systems and municipal water and waste plants in one engineering group. The Industrial HVAC business designs and builds cleanrooms and precision environmental control for semiconductor, flat-panel, battery, pharmaceutical and food plants. That business is Sanki's direct exposure to the semiconductor-fab supply chain. After a long run of mid-single-digit margins, the company has rebuilt profitability since FY2023 through selective, margin-first order intake. Operating margin rose from 2.8% to 11.0% and ROE passed 20% in FY2026. It now runs the "MIRAI 2030" vision and the "Medium-Term Management Plan 2027" under the theme "Deepening and Co-creation". --- **What the company does.** Sanki plans, designs, builds, maintains and refurbishes building services and industrial facilities. In practice it is an engineering contractor. It wins projects from building owners, manufacturers, general contractors and public bodies, engineers the systems, buys equipment and materials, manages subcontracted site labor, and commissions the installation. Revenue comes mainly from percentage-of-completion recognition on construction contracts. Smaller streams come from manufactured equipment (conveyors, diffusers), maintenance and renewal work, and leasing its own property. **Company's own description (FY2026 Annual Securities Report).** The group consists of Sanki and eight consolidated subsidiaries. It runs a Building Equipment business, a Machinery Systems business (manufacture and sale of conveying systems and equipment), an Environmental Systems business (water supply, sewerage and waste-treatment facilities), and a Real Estate business (leasing and management of owned property). Insurance agency, leasing and staffing services sit in "Other". **Revenue model mix (FY2026).** - **Construction contracts (engineering, procurement, installation)** — Share of sales (approx.): about 97%; Comment: Building Equipment, Environmental Systems and most of Machinery Systems **Product sales (conveyors, standard equipment, diffusers):** Share of sales (approx.): within Machinery and Environmental; Comment: Not separately disclosed - **Maintenance, renewal and O&M (including DBO waste-plant operation)** — Share of sales (approx.): included in the segments above; Comment: Not separately disclosed **Real estate leasing and building management:** Share of sales (approx.): about 1%; Comment: ¥2.7 billion segment revenue **Subscription / licensing:** Share of sales (approx.): negligible; Comment: Software such as TRANDIM is not yet a reported revenue stream **Value-chain position.** Sanki sits between the client or general contractor and the network of equipment makers (chillers, air handlers, filters) and specialist subcontractors. Historically about half of building-equipment orders come directly from owners and half through general contractors. Its value added is engineering design, systems integration, construction management, and the commissioning of performance-critical environments such as cleanroom particle class, temperature and humidity stability, and vibration control. **Customer types and end-markets.** **Office, commercial, mixed-use redevelopment:** Typical customers: Developers, owners, general contractors; Segment: Building HVAC & Sanitation **Semiconductor, FPD, electronic components, batteries:** Typical customers: Device makers, foundries, materials makers; Segment: Industrial HVAC **Pharmaceuticals, food, medical devices, R&D labs:** Typical customers: Manufacturers, universities, research institutes; Segment: Industrial HVAC **Automotive:** Typical customers: Paint shops, environmental control for OEMs; Segment: Industrial HVAC **Data centers, telecom:** Typical customers: Operators, telecom carriers; Segment: Electrical; ES Matrix affiliate (Malaysia) **Financial institutions, corporate HQ:** Typical customers: Banks, brokers; Segment: Facility Systems (trading rooms, relocation project management) **Logistics, airports:** Typical customers: Logistics operators, airports; Segment: Machinery Systems **Municipal water and waste:** Typical customers: Local governments; Segment: Environmental Systems **Independent characterization.** Sanki is a contractor whose economics depend on backlog quality. Revenue depends on how fast a large carried-forward backlog is worked off. Profit depends on the gross margin locked in at order intake and on site productivity. Since FY2023 management has deliberately limited intake to protect margins, given tight site labor, and has repriced contracts in an inflationary market. As a result the gross margin rose from about 15.6% (FY2024) to 22.0% (FY2026) while revenue grew only modestly in FY2026. The semiconductor angle is real but cyclical. In the first half of FY2026, Industrial HVAC was the largest building-equipment sub-segment by sales (¥39.0 billion) and gross profit (¥9.0 billion). Its orders, however, swing with large fab and battery projects.

PNC Process Systems is one of the largest Chinese suppliers of the ultra-high-purity "plumbing" that keeps a semiconductor fab running. It designs, builds and maintains the bulk gas, specialty gas, chemical and ultrapure-water delivery systems that feed 12-inch wafer fabs. It has built on that installed base to sell three more things: its own wet-cleaning process tools (single-wafer and batch), electronic materials and services (on-site bulk gas plants, wafer reclaim, parts cleaning), and precision components. The strategy is "process–equipment–materials", meant to serve a fab across its full life cycle: construction, ramp-up and volume production. By the company's own count, it won 46.9% of specialty-gas systems and 29% of chemical systems across 49 mainstream 12-inch fab projects in mainland China through 2025. About 80% of revenue comes from the semiconductor industry. The company is in a difficult transition. Revenue fell 20.8% in FY2025 to CNY 2.85 billion, it lost CNY 777 million, it restated four years of accounts and was publicly censured for it, and it carries a heavy debt load. Against that, its order backlog is large, its operating cash flow has turned positive, and it is pushing to scale its advanced wet-clean tools into volume production. ### What the company does PNC sells to semiconductor fabs, and it times its offerings to the stage a fab is in. 1. **When a fab is being built and ramped (CapEx-linked):** high-purity process system integration. This means designing, procuring, fabricating, installing, testing and commissioning the systems that deliver specialty gases, bulk gases, wet chemicals and ultrapure water to the tools. PNC also builds the support equipment for these systems under its SAFETRON brand: gas cabinets, valve manifold boxes and panels (VMB/VMP), chemical delivery and blending units, and bulk specialty gas systems. Support-equipment volume is close to 40% of system-integration volume. Cumulative shipments of specialty-gas and chemical equipment have passed 49,000 units, up from more than 36,000 at end-2024. 2. **When a fab is in volume production (OpEx-linked):** wet process equipment from subsidiaries Zhiwei Semiconductor (至微半导体) and Jiangsu Qiwei (江苏启微). Also electronic materials and services: on-site electronic bulk gas plants under long-term supply contracts through Shanghai Zhijia Semiconductor Gas and Shanghai Zhichun Precision Gas, wafer reclaim, chamber and parts cleaning and coating in Hefei, total gas and chemical management services (TGM/TCM), and precision components. 3. **Non-semiconductor businesses (about 20% of revenue):** biopharmaceutical process systems through Facheng Pharmaceutical Systems Engineering (珐成制药), and fibre-optic sensing and optoelectronic components through Shanghai Bohui Technology (波汇科技). ### The company's own description The FY2025 annual report says PNC "focuses on the core needs of the integrated circuit industry, adheres to the 'process–equipment–materials' trinity strategy, and provides wafer manufacturing customers with a portfolio of products and services across the full life cycle from construction and commissioning to stable operation." Its main business is described as "semiconductor wet process equipment, high-purity process equipment and systems, and the electronic materials, components and professional services derived from them." ### Revenue model | Revenue type (FY2025) | Revenue (CNY M) | Share of main business (%) | Nature | |---|---|---|---| | System integration (high-purity process systems) | 2293.4 | 80.5 | Project revenue, booked on final customer acceptance | | Equipment (wet process tools) | 285.7 | 10.0 | Product sales, booked on acceptance after qualification | | Electronic materials (bulk gas, materials and services) | 268.9 | 9.4 | Recurring supply and service contracts, typically 5–15 years for gas plants | **System integration (high-purity process systems):** Revenue (CNY M): 2293.4; Share of main business (%): 80.5; Nature: Project revenue, booked on final customer acceptance **Equipment (wet process tools):** Revenue (CNY M): 285.7; Share of main business (%): 10.0; Nature: Product sales, booked on acceptance after qualification **Electronic materials (bulk gas, materials and services):** Revenue (CNY M): 268.9; Share of main business (%): 9.4; Nature: Recurring supply and service contracts, typically 5–15 years for gas plants Most revenue is project-based and booked only at final acceptance. This explains why revenue lags orders and why receivables and inventory are high. The recurring part (bulk gas supply, TGM/TCM, reclaim, parts cleaning) is growing: electronic materials rose 63.6% in FY2025. It is still under 10% of revenue. ### Customers and end markets New orders in 2024 came 84.55% from integrated circuits, and 88.46% of those were for 12-inch fab customers. Named customers include SMIC, Hua Hong, Shanghai Huali, CXMT (ChangXin), YMTC (Yangtze Memory), Beijing Superstring/北电集成, Yandong Micro, Silan, Runpeng Semiconductor and a customer the company refers to as "H-series". Customers are highly concentrated: the top five took 71.19% of FY2025 sales (CNY 2,032.2 million). Smaller end markets are flat-panel display, photovoltaics, LED, fibre optics, biopharma and food and beverage. ### Position in the value chain PNC sits between the fab owner and its general contractor on one side, and the makers of gases, chemicals, valves and fittings on the other. In system integration it acts as engineer, fabricator and installer. In wet equipment it is an original equipment maker, competing with SCREEN, Tokyo Electron, Lam Research and ACM Research (Shanghai). In bulk gas it competes with the industrial-gas majors on long-term on-site supply contracts. Since 2021 it has deliberately built a domestic supply chain for components. The company says this is now largely self-sufficient, which became important after it was placed on the US Entity List in December 2024. ### Independent characterisation PNC is best described as a semiconductor infrastructure contractor with a process-equipment business still being built on top. The contracting business is a domestic leader with real scale. Its margins are falling sharply as projects grow larger and competition intensifies: system-integration gross margin dropped 10.19 points to 23.67% in FY2025. The wet-equipment business has credible technology. It has a 14nm-and-below SPM tool and a patent-intensive S300 platform. But revenue roughly halved in FY2025, and it is losing heavy amounts during capacity ramp-up: Zhiwei lost CNY 308 million and Jiangsu Qiwei CNY 167 million. Balance-sheet risk drives the investment case: about CNY 5.5 billion of interest-bearing debt at Q1 2026, a 73% liabilities-to-assets ratio, receivables collected in about a year, and inventory turning in about 18 months. What matters most is whether the backlog of more than CNY 14 billion converts into cash.

Applied Energy Systems is a niche, engineering-led US manufacturer of the hardware that safely moves process gases from the cylinder or bulk source to the semiconductor tool. Its SEMI-GAS® line covers gas cabinets, valve manifold boxes, bulk specialty gas systems and custom gas equipment, built to the SEMI S2 safety guideline, and sells to Tier 1 chipmakers and equipment OEMs. In February 2026, Applied Materials, the world's largest wafer-fab equipment supplier, named AES one of twelve "Best in Class Performance" suppliers. AES pairs the delivery hardware with ARM Purification's getter, catalyst and adsorber purifiers rated up to 10N purity. It also offers VERSA-GAS™ equipment for laboratory and industrial users, Apex Precision welding and turnkey field services. AES has roughly 70 employees and one main campus in Malvern. It competes against much larger diversified suppliers on application depth, its long installed base, its safety record and responsiveness. --- The company profiled is Applied Energy Systems, Inc. (AES), the Malvern, Pennsylvania-based maker of high-purity and ultra-high-purity (UHP) gas delivery and gas purification equipment sold under the SEMI-GAS®, VERSA-GAS™ and ARM Purification names. It is privately held and is not listed on any stock exchange. ### What the company does AES designs, manufactures, tests, installs and services systems that store, control, distribute, monitor and purify high-purity and ultra-high-purity gases, along with some liquid delivery panels. Its equipment sits between the gas supply (cylinders, multi-cylinder packs, ton containers or bulk sources) and the point of use (a deposition, etch, epitaxy or diffusion chamber, a laboratory instrument, or a research beamline). These gases are often toxic, pyrophoric, corrosive or flammable: silane, dichlorosilane, arsine, phosphine, ammonia and hydrogen among them. The equipment therefore has to contain them, purge them, switch supplies over automatically, detect leaks and shut down safely, while keeping out particles and moisture that would reduce chip yields. ### Company's own description In its 2026 press boilerplate, AES calls itself the leading provider of high and ultra-high-purity gas systems, purification technologies, services and solutions. It says customers have relied on it since 1968 for systems engineering covering design, manufacturing, testing and field service. The company lists four pillars: two gas delivery equipment divisions (SEMI-GAS® and VERSA-GAS™), the ARM Purification portfolio, and Apex Precision welding services. Its corporate tagline is *"Singularly focused on excellence in gas delivery."* ### Independent characterization AES is best described as a specialist capital-equipment and subsystem supplier to the semiconductor fab-infrastructure chain, with a smaller business in laboratory, research, pharmaceutical and industrial gas handling. It is not a gas producer and does not sell molecules. It earns money on the engineered hardware and services around the gas. It has three main kinds of customer: 1. **Fab operators (device makers):** gas cabinets, valve manifold boxes (VMBs) and bulk specialty gas systems installed in fab sub-fab and gas-pad areas. 2. **Equipment OEMs:** custom gas equipment and subsystems built to an OEM's specification. Its supplier relationship with Applied Materials is the clearest public evidence of this channel. 3. **Research, government and industrial users:** VERSA-GAS™ equipment and custom gas handling systems for national laboratories (for example, three contracts with Brookhaven National Laboratory), universities, pharmaceutical and biotechnology sites, and coating and tooling manufacturers. ### Business and revenue model | Revenue stream | Nature | What drives it | |---|---|---| | Equipment sales (SEMI-GAS®, VERSA-GAS™) | Project and order-based capital equipment | New fab construction, tool installs, line conversions, replacement of legacy cabinets | | Custom engineered equipment (Applied Solutions / Xturion™) | Engineered-to-order | OEM programs, unusual chemistries, research facilities | | Purifiers (ARM Purification) | Equipment plus consumable media and refurbishment | Gas purity specifications at advanced nodes, hydrogen and bulk-gas growth, the installed base | | Field services (Applied Services) | Service: installation, process piping, commissioning, training, analytical testing, maintenance and repair | Installed base and fab expansions | | Controller retrofits (GigaGuard™) | Upgrade / aftermarket | Obsolescence of legacy controllers such as the GSM-5 | | Precision welding (Apex Precision) | Contract manufacturing service | Medical device, instrumentation and gas-system components | **Equipment sales (SEMI-GAS®, VERSA-GAS™):** Nature: Project and order-based capital equipment; What drives it: New fab construction, tool installs, line conversions, replacement of legacy cabinets **Custom engineered equipment (Applied Solutions / Xturion™):** Nature: Engineered-to-order; What drives it: OEM programs, unusual chemistries, research facilities **Purifiers (ARM Purification):** Nature: Equipment plus consumable media and refurbishment; What drives it: Gas purity specifications at advanced nodes, hydrogen and bulk-gas growth, the installed base **Field services (Applied Services):** Nature: Service: installation, process piping, commissioning, training, analytical testing, maintenance and repair; What drives it: Installed base and fab expansions **Controller retrofits (GigaGuard™):** Nature: Upgrade / aftermarket; What drives it: Obsolescence of legacy controllers such as the GSM-5 **Precision welding (Apex Precision):** Nature: Contract manufacturing service; What drives it: Medical device, instrumentation and gas-system components The split between product and service revenue is not publicly disclosed. AES does not offer subscription or licensing models. A federal contractor directory describes the business as roughly 70% manufacturing and 30% service. ### Value-chain position AES sits at tier 1 and tier 2 of the semiconductor equipment and facilities supply chain. Upstream it buys valves, regulators, mass-flow and pressure instruments, tubing and fittings, PLC and HMI hardware (it has publicly described its use of Beckhoff EtherCAT and PC-based control), and enclosures. Downstream it sells to fabs directly, through engineering-procurement-construction contractors and fab-facility integrators, and to OEMs who build its subsystems into their process tools. ### End-markets served The company lists semiconductors and electronics; pharmaceuticals and biotechnology; industrial manufacturing; research laboratories and universities; photovoltaics and solar; aerospace and defense; automotive and transportation; molecule (specialty gas) providers; and architects, engineers and contractors. Semiconductor is the strategic core: the SEMI-GAS line targets Tier 1 chipmakers, and the company's most important recent recognition came from a semiconductor equipment OEM.

Ultra Clean Holdings is one of the semiconductor industry's two largest outsourced suppliers of critical gas- and fluid-delivery subsystems to wafer fab equipment (WFE) makers, and the only one of scale that pairs that manufacturing franchise with a global ultra-high-purity parts cleaning, coating and micro-contamination analytics business serving chipmakers directly. Its Products segment (about 88% of revenue) builds gas panels, chemical and liquid delivery modules, weldments, frames, process modules and sub-fab racks, largely to designs owned by Lam Research and Applied Materials, which together took 58.7% of FY2025 revenue. Its Services segment (about 12%) refurbishes chamber parts that wear out with every wafer processed, giving UCT exposure to installed-base utilization rather than only new tool shipments. With manufacturing concentrated in Singapore, Malaysia, China, Czechia, Thailand, the Philippines and the United States, UCT is a high-operating-leverage, low-gross-margin proxy on AI-driven WFE spending, currently executing a "UCT 3.0" capacity and capability expansion under new, largely Applied Materials-trained leadership. --- ### The company's own description In its FY2025 Form 10-K, UCT describes itself as a leading developer and supplier of critical subsystems, components, parts, and ultra-high purity cleaning and analytical services, primarily for the semiconductor industry. It offers customers an integrated outsourced solution covering major subassemblies, faster design-to-delivery cycle times, design for manufacturability, prototyping, part and component manufacturing, tool chamber parts cleaning and coating, and micro-contamination analytical services. It reports two segments: Products (production tools, components, parts, modules and subsystems for semiconductor and display capital equipment) and Services (ultra-high purity parts cleaning, process tool part recoating, surface encapsulation and high-sensitivity micro-contamination analysis for device makers and WFE companies). ### Independent characterization UCT sits one tier below the WFE OEMs in the semiconductor value chain. When a chipmaker buys an etch, deposition, clean or CMP tool from Lam Research, Applied Materials, ASML or another OEM, a significant share of that tool's gas plumbing, liquid chemical handling, frames, weldments and integrated modules is outsourced to contract manufacturers such as UCT. The OEM typically owns the design and intellectual property; UCT contributes design-for-manufacturability engineering, component sourcing, ultra-clean welding and assembly, and testing across extreme pressure and flow ranges. This is a qualification-driven business: suppliers must pass lengthy customer audits of facilities, documentation, engineering and quality systems before volume orders flow, which creates meaningful switching costs but also leaves pricing power with a highly concentrated customer base. The Services segment is structurally different. Chamber parts inside etch and deposition tools accumulate films and must be stripped, cleaned, recoated (for example with plasma-resistant coatings) and certified on a recurring basis. Chipmakers outsource much of this, and UCT's proprietary cleaning recipes, once qualified on a given process, tend to stay in place. Services therefore earns structurally higher gross margins (27.7% in FY2025 versus 14.0% in Products) and tracks wafer starts and fab utilization more than new-tool capex. ### Business and revenue model | Revenue stream | Model | FY2025 revenue (USD M) | Share of total | |---|---|---|---| | Products — subsystems, modules, weldments, frames, components | Build-to-order manufacturing against customer purchase orders and non-binding forecasts; revenue recognized at shipment/delivery; some consignment arrangements | 1799.3 | 87.6% | | Services — parts cleaning, coating, analytics | Per-part / per-job service fees; revenue recognized on completion (typically at shipment back to customer) | 254.7 | 12.4% | | Subscription or licensing | None; UCT does not license IP or sell subscriptions | 0 | 0% | - **Products — subsystems, modules, weldments, frames, components** — Model: Build-to-order manufacturing against customer purchase orders and non-binding forecasts; revenue recognized at shipment/delivery; some consignment arrangements; FY2025 revenue (USD M): 1799.3; Share of total: 87.6% **Services — parts cleaning, coating, analytics:** Model: Per-part / per-job service fees; revenue recognized on completion (typically at shipment back to customer); FY2025 revenue (USD M): 254.7; Share of total: 12.4% **Subscription or licensing:** Model: None; UCT does not license IP or sell subscriptions; FY2025 revenue (USD M): 0; Share of total: 0% Payment terms typically run 30 to 60 days. UCT generally does not carry a material backlog: much revenue is ordered and shipped within the same quarter, and customers are not contractually obligated to minimum purchases. Customer rebates and credits are treated as variable consideration. ### Customers and end markets | Customer metric | FY2023 | FY2024 | FY2025 | |---|---|---|---| | Lam Research share of revenue (%) | 34.0 | 31.9 | 37.0 | | Applied Materials share of revenue (%) | 23.4 | 22.6 | 21.7 | | Top-two customers combined (%) | 57.4 | 54.5 | 58.7 | | Semiconductor-derived revenue (%) | — | — | 95.7 | **Lam Research share of revenue (%):** FY2023: 34.0; FY2024: 31.9; FY2025: 37.0 **Applied Materials share of revenue (%):** FY2023: 23.4; FY2024: 22.6; FY2025: 21.7 **Top-two customers combined (%):** FY2023: 57.4; FY2024: 54.5; FY2025: 58.7 **Semiconductor-derived revenue (%):** FY2025: 95.7 In Q3 2026, Lam Research rose to about 39% of revenue and Applied Materials to about 22% (Q3 2026 Form 10-Q). ASML was a greater-than-10% accounts receivable counterparty at the end of FY2024. Non-semiconductor customers include display, consumer, medical, energy, industrial and research equipment makers. End-market mix: UCT's Summer 2026 corporate presentation shows Q2 2026 revenue split roughly 51% foundry/logic WFE, 34% memory WFE, 11% Services (including low-single-digit OEM service revenue) and 4% non-semiconductor. Management attributes 2026 demand to gate-all-around (GAA) transistors, backside power delivery, high-bandwidth memory (HBM), 3D NAND layer migration, 4F2 DRAM, hybrid bonding and advanced packaging.

Ichor is a tier-one subsystem supplier to the semiconductor wafer-fabrication equipment (WFE) industry. It designs, engineers and builds the gas and chemical delivery systems that meter, purify and route the process gases and liquids used inside etch, deposition, lithography and cleaning tools. Its customers are the large equipment OEMs, not the chipmakers. Lam Research and Applied Materials together took 76% of FY2025 sales, so Ichor's fortunes track their etch and deposition shipments. Historically the company was largely a build-to-print integrator with gross margins in the low-to-mid teens. Since late 2025, under CEO Phil Barros, a former CTO, it has been moving toward its own precision-machined, welded and flow-control components. The aim is to raise Ichor-branded content in each gas system from about 15% (2024) to 35% (end of 2026), and eventually to reach a 50/50 mix of components and systems. That shift is the central margin lever. A consolidated, lower-cost footprint in Malaysia and Mexico, and a fast-growing commercial space business, support it. --- **The company's own description.** In its filings and press releases, Ichor calls itself a leader in the design, engineering and manufacturing of "critical fluid delivery subsystems and components for semiconductor capital equipment," and also serves defense/aerospace and medical markets. Its main products are gas delivery and chemical delivery subsystems, together called fluid delivery subsystems, which it describes as key elements of the process tools used to make semiconductor devices. It also supplies precision-machined components, weldments, e-beam and laser-welded components, precision vacuum and hydrogen brazing, surface treatment technologies and other proprietary products. **What the company does.** A modern etch or deposition chamber needs dozens of process gases and liquid chemistries, delivered at tightly controlled flow, pressure, purity and timing. Ichor builds the modules that do this: **Gas delivery subsystems ("gas panels" / gas boxes):** These are assemblies of valves, regulators, filters, pressure transducers, mass flow controllers (MFCs) and welded or modular substrate manifolds. They are integrated and tested in Class 100 and Class 10,000 clean rooms. **Chemical delivery subsystems:** These blend and dispense the liquid chemistries used in chemical-mechanical planarization (CMP), electroplating and wafer cleaning. **Components:** Ichor supplies these to its own systems and, increasingly, to outside customers: precision-machined parts, weldments, specialty-joined assemblies, plastic and metal parts, surface-treated parts, and a growing range of proprietary valves, fittings, substrates and flow controllers. **Business model.** Ichor sells almost entirely to equipment OEMs on purchase orders. It has no long-term volume contracts and generally no material backlog. Customers give rolling forecasts; management says it usually has good visibility for about six months and hard purchase-order coverage for about one quarter. Consignment and just-in-time stocking programs are common. In the 2026 ramp, customers have also agreed to backstop inventory Ichor builds ahead of orders: if inventory does not move within a set period, the customer takes ownership. **Revenue model mix.** Product revenue is effectively 100% of sales. Ichor does not report service, subscription or licensing revenue. The UK refurbishment activity that came with Semi Scenic in 2012 was exited in the 2025 footprint consolidation. Within product revenue, the mix that matters is between pass-through, build-to-print integration (where much of the bill of materials is purchased components, including third-party MFCs) and proprietary or vertically integrated components, which carry much higher margins. **Value chain position.** Ichor sits two steps from the end customer. Chipmakers (foundries, logic and memory producers) buy process tools from OEMs such as Lam Research, Applied Materials and ASML. Those OEMs outsource fluid delivery subsystems to Ichor and its competitors, and Ichor in turn buys raw stainless steel, plastics and specialty components such as MFCs, filters, regulators and transducers. Some of these are single- or sole-sourced. Ichor's strategy is to move up its own supply chain, making the components it previously bought and capturing their margin. **Customer types.** **Tier-one WFE OEMs:** Description: Lam Research, Applied Materials, ASML; FY2025 relevance: Lam and Applied combined 76% of sales; ASML below 10% **Other semiconductor equipment OEMs:** Description: Third- and fourth-largest semiconductor customers (not named); FY2025 relevance: Softness in these relationships weighed on Q4 2025 guidance **Commercial space:** Description: One customer, not named, has become Ichor's fifth-largest; FY2025 relevance: Under 5% of revenue in early 2026; medium-term goal of a 10% customer **Aerospace and defense:** Description: Served mainly through the IMG precision machining business; Minnesota and California sites are ITAR-compliant; FY2025 relevance: Non-semiconductor revenue below 10% of total **Medical:** Description: Device-market components; FY2025 relevance: Small **End-markets served.** The core market is wafer fabrication equipment, especially etch and deposition. Gate-all-around transistors, high-bandwidth memory (HBM), advanced packaging and higher 3D NAND layer counts all raise the number of etch and deposition steps. Lithography (mainly EUV-related work for ASML) is a smaller and more volatile line. Management expects a small step-up in lithography in Q4 2026 and a large one in Q1 2027. Silicon carbide declined sharply in 2025. **Independent characterization.** Ichor is a high-volume, thin-margin contract manufacturer that is turning itself into a component technology company. Its FY2021–FY2025 GAAP gross margin ranged from 9.3% to 16.6%, well below component specialists such as MKS (46.7% in FY2025). That reflects build-to-print economics and the pricing power of a customer base where two buyers control three-quarters of revenue. The 2025–2026 turnaround rests on three things: vertical integration into proprietary components, moving labor-intensive work to Malaysia and Mexico, and operating leverage in a strong WFE upcycle. Third-quarter 2026 data show the plan working: gross margin of 16.0% non-GAAP, incremental gross margin of 33%, and proprietary content above 30%. The main open questions are working-capital intensity, component shortages, and the durability of the AI-driven equipment cycle.

CS Clean Solutions is a specialist German maker of point-of-use exhaust gas abatement systems for semiconductor, compound semiconductor, photovoltaic, MEMS and research cleanrooms. Its core technology is CLEANSORB® dry-bed chemisorption, which it introduced in 1991. Toxic, pyrophoric and corrosive process gases such as arsine, phosphine, silane, ammonia, hydrides, halides and metal-organics react with a proprietary granulate at ambient temperature and are bound as stable inorganic salts. The process needs no fuel, water, heating or power to scrub. This passive, fail-safe design is the main difference from the burn-wet, plasma-wet and wet-scrubber systems sold by much larger competitors such as Ebara, Atlas Copco (Edwards/CSK), GST and Busch. The company also sells plasma conversion systems (PCS) for PFC destruction and for ammonia and hydrogen removal in GaN processes. A closed-loop refill service for spent absorber columns produces recurring revenue. The products are developed and made in Ismaning and sold through subsidiaries and distribution partners on four continents. **What the company does.** CS Clean Solutions designs, manufactures, installs and services abatement systems that treat hazardous gases leaving semiconductor and related process tools before they reach the house exhaust. The product range covers four uses: point-of-exhaust abatement on process tools (CLEANSORB® systems), emergency-release protection for gas cabinets (CLEAN-PROTECT), purification of gas-cabinet vent and purge lines (CLEANVENT), and plasma-based conversion of gases that dry beds cannot capture directly, mainly perfluorinated compounds and ammonia/hydrogen (PCS product line). **Company's own description.** The company describes itself as a reliable partner for exhaust gas abatement in the semiconductor, photovoltaic and related industries, with more than 40 years of experience. It says its environmentally friendly CLEANSORB® technology is developed in Ismaning near Munich and sold through an international sales and service network. In its SEMI member profile it calls itself the global technology leader in its field and stresses that its dry exhaust gas abatement needs no fossil fuels or water. **Core technology.** The CLEANSORB® process is dry-bed chemisorption. Exhaust gas passes through a column filled with a proprietary granulate, and the hazardous components react chemically to form stable, solid inorganic salts at room temperature. Company literature says one column typically binds several thousand litres of hazardous gas. Spent columns are not thrown away. They are returned to a refill service centre, emptied, refilled with fresh absorbent and sent back, which keeps waste to a minimum. No external heating, moisturization or other facilities are needed, so the system is fully passive and stays on standby even during a power failure or other facilities outage. The columns are UN-approved for transport, which makes worldwide return logistics possible. **Business model.** The company sells capital equipment and then earns recurring consumables and service revenue over the installed base: **Abatement systems:** Nature: Capital equipment (product); Description: CLEANSORB® PRIMELINE, FABLINE, FABLINE FS, FABLINE FX, LABLINE and TOWER systems; CLEAN-PROTECT; PCS TROPO, PCS STRATO, PCS EXO **Absorber media and column refills:** Nature: Recurring consumable; Description: Exchange and refill of spent CLEANSORB® columns and CLEANVENT cartridges through refill service centres **Field service and maintenance:** Nature: Recurring service; Description: Installation, preventive maintenance, column exchange, leak testing; done by company staff or local partners **Application engineering:** Nature: Service; Description: Selecting absorber media and system configuration for each process chemistry (ALD, ALE, etch, CVD, MOCVD, implant, PV) The company does not disclose how revenue splits between products and services. Because refill is closed-loop, every installed system creates a consumables stream for as long as it runs, roughly like a razor-and-blade model. **Value-chain position.** CS Clean Solutions is a tier-2 fab-infrastructure supplier. Its systems sit downstream of process tools and vacuum pumps and upstream of the facility's central exhaust and scrubbers. Customers buy them as facility equipment or as tool-attached sub-fab equipment. Many purchases are made by fab facilities and EHS departments rather than tool buyers. **Customer types.** Customers include semiconductor front-end fabs (logic, power, analog and specialty), compound semiconductor fabs (GaN, GaAs, InP, LED and laser production using MOCVD), photovoltaic cell and module makers (including CIGS thin-film lines that need H2S/H2Se abatement), MEMS fabs, and university and institute research cleanrooms. Customers named in public sources include Fraunhofer ISE (PV-TEC lab, CLEANSORB® CS200FS FABLINE systems installed in 2015 and 2016), Ericsson Microelectronics, KTH, Acreo, Optillion and Okmetic. **End-markets and applications served.** The company lists ALD, ALE, plasma etching, plasma chamber cleaning, CVD (including HDP-CVD, LPCVD and PECVD), MEMS, ion implantation, MOCVD, photovoltaics, and gas cylinder, cabinet and supply-panel systems. **Independent characterization.** CS Clean Solutions is a niche, technology-led Mittelstand company. Its strengths are a long-established dry-chemisorption franchise and a large installed base that generates recurring refill revenue. Its weakness is scale. Dry-bed abatement fits best where gas flows are low to moderate and the gases are very toxic, such as MOCVD, implant, ALD, R&D and pilot lines, and wherever passive, fail-safe operation is valued. In high-flow front-end fabs, burn-wet and plasma-wet systems dominate, and those markets belong to larger, vertically integrated vacuum-and-abatement groups. The plasma conversion line is the company's way to extend into PFC abatement, where climate regulation is raising demand.

Beijing Jingyi Automation Equipment is China's leading domestic supplier of "subsidiary" process equipment for wafer fabs. These are the systems that sit beside the main etch, deposition and diffusion tools and make them work. It has three core product families: process chillers that hold chamber temperatures to tight tolerances, down to about –70°C; point-of-use (local) scrubbers that neutralise toxic and greenhouse process exhaust; and wafer sorters for wafer handling. A municipal state-owned enterprise controls the company. It grew out of the semiconductor unit of a Beijing automation research institute and became the first company from the Beijing Holdings group to list on the STAR Market. Its customers are China's largest memory and logic fabs, and five of them account for more than 80% of revenue. The company was ranked No. 1 by domestic market share in chillers in 2022 and held roughly 39% of the domestic chiller market in 2024. It is now building a second production base in Wuhu, Anhui, and moving into dry vacuum pumps, display-panel temperature control and next-generation abatement, aiming to become a broader platform for fab sub-systems. **What the company does.** The company researches, develops, manufactures and sells special-purpose semiconductor equipment. Its main products are semiconductor process temperature-control equipment (Chillers), semiconductor process exhaust treatment equipment (Local Scrubbers) and wafer transfer equipment (Sorters). They are used on integrated circuit manufacturing lines. In its 2025 annual report the company says its products work on the most advanced domestic logic lines (28nm and below) and memory lines (3D NAND of 128 layers and above). The company describes its principal business as unchanged since it was founded. **Company's own description (2025 annual report, paraphrased).** The company earns revenue and profit by selling semiconductor temperature-control equipment, process exhaust treatment equipment, wafer sorters and related products to semiconductor manufacturers. In 2025 its principal operating revenue came mainly from sales of these special-purpose equipment products. **Independent characterisation.** Jingyi is a fab sub-system and auxiliary equipment supplier. It is not a front-end process-tool maker like Naura or AMEC. Its products are needed for every etch, CVD/ALD and diffusion chamber a fab installs, so demand tracks the number of process chambers China's fabs add, not any single process step. Chillers make up about two-thirds of revenue and earn the highest margin. Content per chamber is rising as advanced logic and high-layer-count 3D NAND need lower temperatures and tighter control. Scrubbers are the second pillar but have stalled since 2025. Sorters are still small and earn almost no margin. Spare parts and field service are growing fastest from a low base and provide the first recurring, installed-base revenue. **Business and revenue model.** **Semiconductor process chillers:** FY2025 revenue (RMB M): 936.99; Share of revenue (%): 65.7; Character: Capital equipment, project-based, recognised on customer acceptance **Process exhaust treatment (local scrubbers):** FY2025 revenue (RMB M): 348.07; Share of revenue (%): 24.4; Character: Capital equipment, project-based **Wafer transfer equipment (sorters):** FY2025 revenue (RMB M): 35.64; Share of revenue (%): 2.5; Character: Capital equipment **Spare parts and supporting equipment:** FY2025 revenue (RMB M): 83.56; Share of revenue (%): 5.9; Character: Consumables and retrofits tied to installed base **Maintenance, repair and other services:** FY2025 revenue (RMB M): 21.43; Share of revenue (%): 1.5; Character: Service, tied to installed base **Scrap sales:** FY2025 revenue (RMB M): 0.54; Share of revenue (%): 0.04; Character: Other business About 92% of revenue comes from equipment sales and about 7% from aftermarket parts and services. The company has no subscription or licensing revenue. **Operating model (2025 annual report).** **R&D:** Development is mainly in-house and runs through pre-research, design and development, acceptance, prototype release, customer validation and production introduction. **Procurement:** Purchases come from a qualified-supplier list. Suppliers machine some core parts to Jingyi's drawings. **Production:** Built to order, with monthly production-planning meetings of sales, procurement and production. Some assembly is outsourced, and Jingyi does commissioning and testing itself. **Sales:** 100% direct sales, won through negotiation or tender. After-sales engineers are stationed at customer sites. **Value-chain position.** Jingyi sits in the semiconductor equipment layer, upstream of wafer fabs. Its inputs include compressors, heat exchangers, control systems, sensors, pumps and machined parts, some of them imported from the United States and Japan. Its outputs are installed beside OEM process tools from Applied Materials, Lam Research, Tokyo Electron, Naura and AMEC, or bought directly by fabs. **Customer types and end-markets.** The core market is 12-inch IC fabs, both memory (3D NAND and DRAM) and logic/foundry. Named customers include Yangtze Memory (YMTC), SMIC, Hua Hong Group, Intel Dalian, CanSemi (Guangzhou Yuexin) and CXMT (ChangXin Memory). In 2022 the company added more than 20 new customers, including CXMT's Beijing entity, SiEn (Qingdao) and Shanghai Dingtai Jiangxin. Chillers were first extended to display-panel manufacturing in 2020. A dedicated OLED/Micro-LED panel chiller is now at prototype and small-batch stage. All FY2025 revenue came from mainland China.

GnBS eco is a Korean specialist in point-of-use exhaust-gas abatement equipment — the scrubbers that sit beside process tools in semiconductor, solar-cell and display fabs and destroy toxic, flammable, corrosive and global-warming (PFC) gases before they leave the plant. Its core technology is high-temperature plasma combustion combined with wet cleaning, which treats a wider range of gases than conventional LNG-fired "burn & wet" scrubbers, and its signature product is a wet-free plasma scrubber, developed in 2014 and commercialised in 2017, that eliminates wastewater by capturing reaction by-products as powder. The company is a key abatement vendor to SK hynix, supplies Chinese chipmakers and Intel, and holds a dominant position in solar-cell scrubbers in China and India, where it supplies Tata, Adani, Waaree and Hanwha Qcells. A smaller "New Business" division operates energy multiplex stations (fuel, EV charging). Revenue reached a record KRW 91.9 billion in FY2025 and KRW 78.4 billion in H1 2026 alone, as Indian solar and Korean memory capex cycles coincided. The company is also profiled among vendors in industry studies of the global process exhaust and abatement market. --- ### What the company does GnBS eco designs, assembles, installs and services environmental process equipment. The flagship category is the local (point-of-use) scrubber, which treats exhaust from individual etch, deposition (CVD/ALD), diffusion and solar-cell coating tools. Process exhausts contain silane, NF3, PFCs, WF6, acid gases and nitrogen compounds; left untreated they corrode vacuum pumps and ducts, create fire and explosion risk, and breach emissions permits. GnBS eco's scrubbers capture or destroy these residues — either into industrial water or, in the wet-free design, into filters as solid powder — which also stabilises operation of the upstream vacuum pumps and process tools. Alongside scrubbers the company sells powder traps for semiconductor vacuum lines, plasma white-plume removal (WPR) systems for cooling towers at LNG power plants and industrial sites, De-NOx and electrostatic-precipitator (EP) systems, latent-heat-recovery (LHR) units and plasma analysers. ### Company's own description In its regulatory filings and investor communications the company describes itself as a manufacturer of eco-friendly process equipment that prevents environmental pollution, specialising in air-pollution control equipment that generates no wastewater. Its listed product families are wet-free scrubbers, traps for semiconductor equipment, and cooling-tower white-plume removal devices; the industry classification is special-purpose machinery manufacturing. ### Independent characterisation In practice GnBS eco is a capex-cycle equipment supplier with a consumables and service tail. Roughly 60% of FY2025 revenue came from scrubbers; most of the remainder came from the energy-station business booked in the New Business division. Revenue tracks two investment cycles — memory/foundry fab construction (principally SK hynix and Chinese fabs) and solar-cell factory construction (China in 2022–23, India from 2023 and especially 2026). The company's differentiation is technological (plasma torch design, powder-capture know-how, wet-free architecture) rather than scale: at under KRW 100 billion of FY2025 sales it is roughly a quarter the size of the domestic leader GST. ### Revenue model | Revenue type | Description | Approx. weight | |---|---|---| | Equipment sales | Custom-configured scrubbers, traps, WPR, De-NOx/EP systems, sold per unit or per project; staged payment (e.g. deposit, shipment, set-up, acceptance) | Majority of Semiconductor Business Division revenue | | Parts, consumables and service | Plasma torches, filters, spare parts, maintenance for the installed base | Not separately disclosed | | Energy retail | Fuel sales and EV charging at energy multiplex stations (New Business division) | About a third of FY2025 consolidated revenue (division total KRW 30.5 billion) | | Licensing / subscription | None reported | — | **Equipment sales:** Description: Custom-configured scrubbers, traps, WPR, De-NOx/EP systems, sold per unit or per project; staged payment (e.g. deposit, shipment, set-up, acceptance); Approx. weight: Majority of Semiconductor Business Division revenue **Parts, consumables and service:** Description: Plasma torches, filters, spare parts, maintenance for the installed base; Approx. weight: Not separately disclosed **Energy retail:** Description: Fuel sales and EV charging at energy multiplex stations (New Business division); Approx. weight: About a third of FY2025 consolidated revenue (division total KRW 30.5 billion) **Licensing / subscription:** Description: None reported; Approx. weight: — Average scrubber pricing is about KRW 50–60 million per unit, per the CEO in May 2025, while a De-NOx unit averages about KRW 2.5 billion. ### Value-chain position GnBS eco sits in the fab infrastructure / sub-fab layer of the semiconductor and photovoltaic supply chain, alongside vacuum pumps and chillers. Customers are fab owners (SK hynix, SMIC, YMTC, Intel, Sony, ROHM) and solar-cell makers, but the company also sells through or alongside process-equipment OEMs — notably the leading Chinese HJT (heterojunction) deposition-tool maker, with which it has co-developed abatement modules since the early stage of HJT tool design. Manufacturing is assembly-centred: the company buys fabricated cabinets, fans, valves and electrical components and integrates them with in-house plasma torches and control systems at its Anseong plants. ### Customer types and end-markets (FY2025 revenue) | End-market | Share of FY2025 revenue (%) | |---|---| | Semiconductor | 50 | | Solar (PV cells) | 11 | | Display | 1 | | Other (energy stations, power-plant equipment, other) | 38 | **Semiconductor:** Share of FY2025 revenue (%): 50 **Solar (PV cells):** Share of FY2025 revenue (%): 11 **Display:** Share of FY2025 revenue (%): 1 **Other (energy stations, power-plant equipment, other):** Share of FY2025 revenue (%): 38 Named customers include SK hynix, Jusung Engineering and KEC in Korea; SMIC and YMTC in China; Intel in the United States; Tata, Adani and Waaree in India; JinkoSolar, JA Solar and Tongwei in China; Hanwha Qcells; Sony and ROHM in Japan; and Shanghai Shareway Environment Technology, the company's long-standing Chinese joint-venture partner and largest customer. The company trades with around 30 large global customers and exports to roughly ten countries including China, Malaysia, Singapore, Europe, India and the United States.

Shanghai Shengjian Technology is a Chinese green-technology supplier to chip and display fabs. It began in exhaust ducting and grew into one of the country's main designers and integrators of process exhaust treatment systems, which must run in step with a fab's production process. Since listing in 2021 it has used that installed relationship to move up the value chain, into point-of-use scrubbers, zeolite VOC units, dry vacuum pumps, chillers and wet electronic chemicals with a recycling loop. The company is now in a costly transition. Revenue fell from CNY 1.83 billion in 2023 to CNY 1.13 billion in 2025, and new factories, price competition and higher R&D pushed it into loss. The investment case rests on converting customer qualifications for domestic subsystems into volume, and on restoring margins before leverage becomes a constraint. ### Company description In its 2025 Annual Report the company calls itself a well-known green technology service provider to China's high-tech manufacturing industry. Its mission is "committed to a better environment". Its strategy is "industry extension plus product extension", and its operating policy is to provide green services to technology companies and technology products to green companies. It describes three business pillars: green factory system solutions, semiconductor auxiliary equipment and core components, and electronic chemical materials. ### Independent characterisation Shengjian is best understood as a project-based fab-infrastructure contractor that is trying to become an equipment and consumables company. Green factory systems still produced 67.9% of FY2025 revenue. These are mostly non-standard, designed-to-order projects won by tender, with long acceptance cycles. The newer equipment and chemical lines have better long-term economics, because they carry replacement and service demand and depend less on new fab construction. They are not yet large enough to absorb the fixed costs built for them. ### Business and revenue model | Dimension | Model | |---|---| | Green factory systems | Custom design, procurement and system integration; contracts won through tender and competitive negotiation; revenue recognised on installation and commissioning acceptance, or on delivery acceptance where no installation applies | | Equipment and components | Made to order with some stock; won through competitive negotiation and tender; revenue recognised on commissioning acceptance or signed receipt | | Electronic chemicals | Direct sales to end customers; revenue recognised on delivery acceptance | | Services | Operating services recognised as delivered; maintenance recognised on acceptance or over the service period | | Customers | Chip, display and new-energy manufacturers, plus the general contractors building their plants | | Procurement | Equipment, parts and labour for systems; materials for equipment and chemicals; top five suppliers were 19.54% of FY2025 purchases | **Green factory systems:** Model: Custom design, procurement and system integration; contracts won through tender and competitive negotiation; revenue recognised on installation and commissioning acceptance, or on delivery acceptance where no installation applies **Equipment and components:** Model: Made to order with some stock; won through competitive negotiation and tender; revenue recognised on commissioning acceptance or signed receipt **Electronic chemicals:** Model: Direct sales to end customers; revenue recognised on delivery acceptance **Services:** Model: Operating services recognised as delivered; maintenance recognised on acceptance or over the service period **Customers:** Model: Chip, display and new-energy manufacturers, plus the general contractors building their plants **Procurement:** Model: Equipment, parts and labour for systems; materials for equipment and chemicals; top five suppliers were 19.54% of FY2025 purchases Subscription and licensing revenue are not reported lines. Revenue is overwhelmingly product and project based. Rental income appeared in 2026, when part of the Shengjian Building was leased out. ### Value chain position and end-markets The company sits between fab owners and component suppliers. Exhaust and abatement systems are tied directly to yield, utilisation, worker health and emissions compliance, so fabs tend to keep proven suppliers. Its end-markets are integrated circuits, semiconductor display and, on a shrinking basis, new energy. In FY2024, integrated circuits generated CNY 1,002 million and display CNY 342 million, together 92.75% of main business revenue, according to a broker summary of the annual report. New energy contributed CNY 93 million, and its cost of sales fell further, from CNY 53.0 million in FY2024 to CNY 16.9 million in FY2025. The company's public profile has named customers including SMIC, Hua Hong, BOE, CSOT, HKC, Tianma, Visionox, EverDisplay, Silan and GTA Semiconductor-class regional fabs. Filings do not name the top five customers, who accounted for CNY 731.82 million, or 65.01% of FY2025 sales.

UNISEM is a Korean sub-fab equipment specialist. It builds the two utility systems every front-end wafer tool needs and that its customers cannot run without: point-of-use gas scrubbers, which destroy toxic, flammable and high-global-warming-potential process exhausts, and precision chillers, which hold etch and deposition chambers at set temperatures down to cryogenic levels. It was the first Korean company to localise both product classes, the scrubber in the mid-1990s and the chiller in 1999. It holds more than 40% of the domestic IDM scrubber market and about 30% of the chiller market, and it supplies every scrubber type to both Samsung Electronics and SK hynix. Equipment sales follow the memory capex cycle closely. A maintenance and spare-parts business covering roughly a third of revenue cushions the downturns. The investment case now rests on three things: the 2026–2027 DRAM and NAND build-out, cryogenic chillers for 400-plus-layer NAND etch, and low-GWP CO₂ chillers. Margins compressed to 4% in 2025 and are now recovering. ### What the company does UNISEM designs, manufactures, installs and services sub-fab and fab-utility equipment for semiconductor and flat-panel-display manufacturing. It has three revenue streams. 1. **Gas scrubbers (gas abatement systems).** These are installed in the gas rooms beneath front-end process tools (CVD, ALD, etch, diffusion). They take exhaust from the tool's vacuum pump and treat it at the first stage before it reaches the fab's central exhaust treatment. UNISEM offers burn-wet (LNG or fuel combustion), burn-box, wet-burn-wet, plasma-wet, heat-wet (electric, indirect heating), catalyst and resin (dry) designs. Target gases include perfluorocompounds (NF₃, CF₄, C₂F₆, C₃F₈, SF₆), flammables (SiH₄, PH₃, H₂, TEOS, DCS) and water-soluble acids (Cl₂, HCl, HF, NH₃, WF₆, BCl₃). 2. **Chillers (temperature control units).** These are refrigerant-compressor, heat-exchanger, proximity and multi-channel mixing units that circulate coolant through process chambers, electrostatic chucks and wafer stages. The range runs from standard units (around +20 to +30 °C) to low-temperature units for V9 NAND (around −30 °C) and cryogenic units (−70 °C class, with V10 units targeting −60 to −100 °C). 3. **Maintenance, spare parts and installation.** This covers recurring service on the installed base of scrubbers and chillers, consumables, retrofits, and vacuum-line and exhaust-piping construction (reported as "vacuum line" or "construction"). ### Company's own description In its periodic filings and investor materials, UNISEM describes itself as a manufacturer of semiconductor and display equipment. Its flagship products are the scrubber, a purifier for harmful gases generated in the manufacturing process, and the chiller, a temperature-control unit that keeps semiconductor processes stable. The company stresses that it was the first in Korea to localise both products, that it ranks first or second in market share at its main customers, and that it is extending its eco-friendly product line: low-carbon and low-power scrubbers, and CO₂-refrigerant chillers that comply with GWP regulation. The company reports a single operating segment, semiconductor equipment, which accounted for 100% of revenue in 2026. ### Business and revenue model | Revenue stream | Model | FY2025 share of revenue (%) | Character | |---|---|---|---| | Chiller units | Product sale per purchase order, tied to tool installs (often through OEM tool vendors) | 45 | Cyclical. Mix-driven: cryogenic units command 2–3 times the price of standard units. | | Gas scrubbers | Product sale per purchase order, tied to fab and line build-outs | 21 | Highly cyclical. Its share of revenue fell from 45% in 2021 to 20% in 2024. | | Maintenance & other | Service contracts, spare parts, consumables, overhauls | 32 | Recurring and installed-base driven: KRW 70–87 billion a year since 2021 | | Vacuum line / construction | Project-based piping and installation | 2 | Small and lumpy | **Chiller units:** Model: Product sale per purchase order, tied to tool installs (often through OEM tool vendors); FY2025 share of revenue (%): 45; Character: Cyclical. Mix-driven: cryogenic units command 2–3 times the price of standard units. **Gas scrubbers:** Model: Product sale per purchase order, tied to fab and line build-outs; FY2025 share of revenue (%): 21; Character: Highly cyclical. Its share of revenue fell from 45% in 2021 to 20% in 2024. **Maintenance & other:** Model: Service contracts, spare parts, consumables, overhauls; FY2025 share of revenue (%): 32; Character: Recurring and installed-base driven: KRW 70–87 billion a year since 2021 **Vacuum line / construction:** Model: Project-based piping and installation; FY2025 share of revenue (%): 2; Character: Small and lumpy There is no subscription or licensing income. On the FY2025 mix, about two-thirds of revenue is product and one-third is service. Payment terms on equipment are usually milestone-based. A typical Korean sub-fab equipment contract pays 90% after the equipment arrives and 10% after setup is complete. Revenue recognition is therefore concentrated in the quarters when tools move into fabs. ### Value-chain position UNISEM is a Tier-1 supplier of fab-facility and sub-fab equipment. It sells: **directly to chipmakers (IDMs and foundries):** Samsung Electronics (memory and foundry, Korea, Xi'an in China, and Austin and Taylor in Texas), SK hynix (Icheon, Cheongju, Wuxi and Dalian in China), Micron and Kioxia; **through OEM tool makers:** chillers that are integrated with, or specified alongside, process tools. Its customers include Tokyo Electron, for cryogenic etch chillers, and Applied Materials, which named UNISEM a Best Supplier in 2023; **to display panel makers:** historically BOE, LG Display, Samsung Display and other Chinese panel makers. Display accounted for 32% of revenue in 2018 but much less today. ### Customer types and end markets | Customer group | Estimated share of revenue | Notes | |---|---|---| | Samsung Electronics (incl. overseas fabs) | 45–50% (2024 est.) | Largest customer. Annual supply contracts. Pyeongtaek P3/P4/P5, Hwaseong, Xi'an, Taylor. | | SK hynix | About 25% (2024 est.) | Customer since 2014. Cheongju M15X, Icheon M16, Yongin cluster, Dalian. | | Overseas IDMs / OEMs | Remainder (together with display) | Micron, Kioxia, Tokyo Electron (cryogenic chillers), Applied Materials | | Display makers | Small and declining | BOE, LG Display, Samsung Display, Chinese panel makers | **Samsung Electronics (incl. overseas fabs):** Estimated share of revenue: 45–50% (2024 est.); Notes: Largest customer. Annual supply contracts. Pyeongtaek P3/P4/P5, Hwaseong, Xi'an, Taylor. **SK hynix:** Estimated share of revenue: About 25% (2024 est.); Notes: Customer since 2014. Cheongju M15X, Icheon M16, Yongin cluster, Dalian. **Overseas IDMs / OEMs:** Estimated share of revenue: Remainder (together with display); Notes: Micron, Kioxia, Tokyo Electron (cryogenic chillers), Applied Materials **Display makers:** Estimated share of revenue: Small and declining; Notes: BOE, LG Display, Samsung Display, Chinese panel makers End markets, in order of importance: DRAM (including HBM), 3D NAND, foundry/logic, and display. Samsung Electronics and SK hynix together generate more than 70% of revenue. ### Independent characterisation UNISEM is a capex-beta play on Korean memory investment. Its operating structure gives high gross operating leverage, because a 20–25% increase in revenue moves operating margins by several points. A cash-rich, debt-free balance sheet absorbs the deep troughs. The 2022–2024 downturn showed how exposed the business is. Revenue fell 26% from the 2021 peak. Operating margin fell from 14.8% to 4.0–4.6% as chiller coolant costs rose (3M exited PFAS-based fluids), product mix shifted and qualification costs climbed. The 2025–2026 recovery so far has been volume-led rather than margin-led: 2025 revenue grew 25% while operating profit rose only 9%. The structural upgrades (cryogenic chillers, CO₂ chillers, plasma and heat-type scrubbers) are real. The key question for 2026–2027 is whether they turn into a sustained return to double-digit margins.

Kanken Techno is a privately held Kyoto manufacturer that specializes in point-of-use exhaust gas abatement systems for semiconductor fabs. These systems destroy the toxic, flammable and global-warming gases released by etch, deposition, diffusion, epitaxy and ion implantation tools. The company built its franchise on electrically heated thermal decomposition, using its KT1000 series since 1993, and on atmospheric-pressure plasma abatement through its KPL series. Neither approach burns fossil fuel, so both avoid the CO₂ and thermal NOx that combustion-type competitors produce. Kanken handles R&D, design, manufacturing, sales and field maintenance in-house. Customers include TSMC, Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, Kioxia, Sony, SUMCO and Shin-Etsu Handotai. The company says it holds the No. 1 share in Japan and No. 2 worldwide. Group revenue grew from about JPY 16 billion in fiscal 2021 to JPY 30.7 billion in fiscal 2025. Management targets JPY 58.5 billion by 2030, to be reached by doubling Kumamoto capacity, adding a new building at the Kyoto headquarters, and growing new lines in neon gas recycling and electric VOC treatment. --- The 2025 and 2026 figures are as of 1 April in each year. ### What the company does Kanken Techno makes atmospheric environmental protection equipment (大気環境保全装置). Most of it is exhaust gas abatement systems (除害装置) that render harmful process gases safe before they reach a fab's central exhaust and the outside air. The gases it treats include: **Toxic hydrides:** arsine (AsH₃), phosphine and diborane from ion implantation and epitaxy. **Pyrophoric and flammable gases:** silane (SiH₄), dichlorosilane, trichlorosilane and hydrogen. **Perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) and other high-GWP gases:** CF₄, NF₃ and SF₆ from etch and chamber cleaning. **Corrosive and halogen by-products:** HBr, BCl₃, fluorine and HF. - **Ozone**, plus large-flow ammonia and hydrogen from MOCVD. A typical advanced fab installs several thousand abatement units, each placed at a process tool. That makes abatement a volume, tool-attached category closely tied to wafer-fab equipment spending. Kanken's company description says it develops, designs, manufactures and sells atmospheric environmental protection equipment. It treats the harmful gases emitted by semiconductor and other manufacturing processes, and it insists on keeping every function in-house, from research and development through design, manufacturing, sales and maintenance. Its stated mission is to help prevent global warming and protect the atmosphere, under the slogan "Kanken Techno creates the environment of the future" (未来環境を創造するカンケンテクノ). ### Business lines The company presents three business lines: 1. **Abatement equipment business (除害装置事業):** point-of-use scrubbers and thermal decomposition systems for semiconductors, flat-panel displays, LEDs, photovoltaics, power devices and secondary batteries. This is the core of group revenue. 2. **Deodorization and VOC treatment business (脱臭・有機溶剤臭(VOC)処理装置事業):** plant-scale deodorizing and VOC oxidation systems for printing, coating and converting, chemicals, food and automotive painting lines. The latest product is an on-site electric VOC oxidizer. 3. **Gas recycling business (ガスリサイクル装置事業):** systems that recover and purify rare gases. The flagship is an on-site neon (Ne) recycling unit for excimer lasers. Industry directories also list dehumidification equipment among the company's products. ### Business and revenue model Revenue comes from two streams: **Equipment sales:** engineered-to-order capital equipment, typically priced per unit and sold directly to fab owners or through fab construction projects. Kanken describes its products as fully custom-made. **After-sales service:** installation, start-up, preventive maintenance, consumables and parts replacement, and improvement proposals delivered by field service engineers. Service engineers work in teams at customer fabs, and the overseas subsidiaries employ field engineers to support the installed base. Kanken has sold more than 10,000 electric-heater and atmospheric-plasma abatement units, which creates a sizeable recurring maintenance and parts stream. The company does not disclose how its revenue splits between equipment and service. There is no subscription or licensing revenue. ### Value chain position Kanken sits in the fab-infrastructure layer of the semiconductor supply chain. It works alongside vacuum pumps, chillers, gas delivery and central scrubbers, and it is distinct from the process-tool OEMs. It sells mainly to fab owners (IDMs, foundries, memory makers and wafer makers) and also to equipment makers; Tokyo Electron and Disco appear among its customers. Its key inputs are stainless steel and fabricated piping, electric heaters, plasma torches and power supplies, control panels and instrumentation. Kanken fabricates and assembles most of these in-house; it uses a 3D fiber laser processor for stainless piping and has its own control-panel production team. ### Customers and end-markets | Customer type | Named customers | Processes served | |---|---|---| | Foundry | TSMC | Etch, CVD, diffusion, epitaxy | | Memory | Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, Kioxia | Diffusion, etch, implant, deposition | | Image sensors / IDM | Sony | Front-end processes | | Silicon wafers | SUMCO, Shin-Etsu Handotai, SK Siltron | Epitaxial wafer processes | | Equipment OEMs | Tokyo Electron, Disco | Tool-integrated or tool-adjacent abatement | | Non-semiconductor industry | Printing, coating, chemical, food and automotive painting plants | VOC oxidation and deodorization | **Foundry:** Named customers: TSMC; Processes served: Etch, CVD, diffusion, epitaxy **Memory:** Named customers: Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, Kioxia; Processes served: Diffusion, etch, implant, deposition **Image sensors / IDM:** Named customers: Sony; Processes served: Front-end processes **Silicon wafers:** Named customers: SUMCO, Shin-Etsu Handotai, SK Siltron; Processes served: Epitaxial wafer processes **Equipment OEMs:** Named customers: Tokyo Electron, Disco; Processes served: Tool-integrated or tool-adjacent abatement **Non-semiconductor industry:** Named customers: Printing, coating, chemical, food and automotive painting plants; Processes served: VOC oxidation and deodorization The end-markets are semiconductors (front-end logic, memory, power and SiC, compound semiconductors), FPDs, LEDs, photovoltaics, secondary batteries and general industry for VOCs. ### Independent characterization Kanken is a specialist mid-sized player in a market led by divisions of much larger groups (Edwards within Atlas Copco, and Ebara) and by listed Korean specialists (GST, Unisem, CSK). Its defensible niche rests on two things: **Fuel-free thermal technology:** Electric heating and plasma avoid on-site natural gas, combustion CO₂ and thermal NOx, which matters more as fabs take on Scope 1 targets. - **Long-standing incumbency in Japanese, Taiwanese and Korean fabs,** backed by local factories and service teams. The business is engineering-heavy and labor-intensive, since assembly is largely manual. Its fortunes are tightly tied to fab construction cycles in Taiwan, Japan, Korea, China and the United States.

DAS Environmental Expert GmbH is a Dresden-based, family-owned environmental technology group that designs, manufactures and services point-of-use (POU) waste gas abatement systems for semiconductor and other high-tech fabs, and engineers turnkey industrial wastewater treatment plants. Founded in 1991 out of East German thin-film vacuum expertise, it has become one of the few independent European specialists in a market dominated by large Japanese, Korean, Swedish-owned and Chinese suppliers. Its portfolio spans burn-wet, plasma-wet, wet, burn-dry, catalytic and electrostatic technologies, sold under botanical brand names such as ESCAPE, STYRAX, TILIA, SALIX and TSUGA. The company states that at least one DAS system is installed in roughly 45% of the world's semiconductor fabs and that it serves four of the five largest high-tech manufacturers. With more than 950 employees, manufacturing in Germany and service hubs across Taiwan, China, Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia and the United States, DAS positions itself as the only abatement vendor integrating air and water treatment for the "net-zero subfab". --- ### What the company does DAS Environmental Experts develops, produces, installs and services equipment that removes hazardous, toxic, pyrophoric, corrosive and climate-active substances from industrial process exhaust and process wastewater. Its registered corporate purpose is the development, manufacture and sale of plants and technologies for exhaust gas and wastewater treatment by means of physical, chemical and biological processes for environmental protection, and the provision of maintenance and services for such plants and technologies. The business is organised in two business units: **Business Unit Gas Treatment (waste gas abatement):** point-of-use abatement systems installed in the subfab directly beneath or next to process tools (etch, CVD, ALD, epitaxy, MOCVD, wet clean, TCO deposition). Systems treat waste gas streams from 1 m³/h up to 5,000 m³/h and handle condensable, flammable, corrosive, reactive, toxic and/or pyrophoric gases and fine dust. This is the historical core and the main growth engine, overwhelmingly serving the semiconductor industry, with additional exposure to photovoltaics, LED/compound semiconductors, TFT/flat-panel display, MEMS and nanotechnology. **Business Unit Water Treatment (wastewater treatment):** mechanical, biological and chemical-physical wastewater treatment plants, from process design and pilot testing through engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning, maintenance and full operator contracts. Customers include semiconductor and wafer producers, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, food and beverage, dairy and paper. The company entered this field in 2006. ### Company's own description In its public materials, the company describes itself as a leading environmental technology company with resource-saving and sustainable solutions for process waste gas and wastewater treatment, a family-run mid-sized company based in Dresden with more than three decades of market and technology experience. It characterises its mission as "clean air and clean water for industries worldwide" and its brand claim as "Purple Innovations for Green Manufacturing". The company states that its systems treat approximately 134 million m³ of waste gas and 56,400 m³ of wastewater daily, that it is trusted by four of the five largest high-tech manufacturers worldwide, and that it is the only company in its sector combining waste gas and wastewater treatment. ### Business and revenue model | Revenue stream | Description | Character | |---|---|---| | Equipment sales (Gas Treatment) | Sale of POU abatement units, configured per tool/process; manufactured in Dresden | Capital-equipment, tied to fab construction and tool installs | | Spare parts and consumables | Original spare and wear parts shipped from Dresden headquarters | Recurring, installed-base driven | | Field service and maintenance | Preventive maintenance, 24/7 technical support, resident on-site service teams at customer fabs, remote and on-site assistance | Recurring, contract-based | | Connected services | Remote monitoring, predictive maintenance, data-driven optimisation | Emerging recurring stream | | Training | Operator and technician training at Innovation & Support Centers (Hsinchu, Glendale, Dresden) | Ancillary | | Water projects (EPC) | Turnkey wastewater plants: analysis, planning, design, procurement, construction, commissioning | Project-based, lumpy | | Water plant service / operation | Maintenance, optimisation and full operator contracts | Recurring | | Licensing | Historical ESCAPE licence to Mitsubishi Kakoki Kaisha (2000) | Minor / historical | **Equipment sales (Gas Treatment):** Description: Sale of POU abatement units, configured per tool/process; manufactured in Dresden; Character: Capital-equipment, tied to fab construction and tool installs **Spare parts and consumables:** Description: Original spare and wear parts shipped from Dresden headquarters; Character: Recurring, installed-base driven **Field service and maintenance:** Description: Preventive maintenance, 24/7 technical support, resident on-site service teams at customer fabs, remote and on-site assistance; Character: Recurring, contract-based **Connected services:** Description: Remote monitoring, predictive maintenance, data-driven optimisation; Character: Emerging recurring stream **Training:** Description: Operator and technician training at Innovation & Support Centers (Hsinchu, Glendale, Dresden); Character: Ancillary **Water projects (EPC):** Description: Turnkey wastewater plants: analysis, planning, design, procurement, construction, commissioning; Character: Project-based, lumpy **Water plant service / operation:** Description: Maintenance, optimisation and full operator contracts; Character: Recurring **Licensing:** Description: Historical ESCAPE licence to Mitsubishi Kakoki Kaisha (2000); Character: Minor / historical The split of revenue between product, service and project streams is not publicly disclosed. The installed base — which the company describes as present in about 45% of global semiconductor fabs — implies a material aftermarket share, consistent with industry norms in which service and consumables are a meaningful portion of abatement-vendor revenue. ### Value-chain position and customers DAS sits in the fab infrastructure layer of the semiconductor value chain, between process-tool OEMs (whose tools generate the effluent) and the fab operator (who is legally responsible for emissions). It sells both directly to fab operators (IDMs and foundries) and works as a development partner to OEMs and building planners on subfab layout, media supply and process coupling. Customer types include integrated device manufacturers, foundries, memory makers, photomask houses (e.g., the Advanced Mask Technology Center Dresden), wafer producers (e.g., Okmetic in Finland), LED and compound-semiconductor fabs, solar cell makers, display makers, and — in water — food, dairy, pharma and chemical producers (e.g., DSM Nutritional Products in Switzerland, BEL in Vietnam, DMK Group in Saxony). ### Independent characterisation DAS is best understood as a specialist mid-cap capital-equipment and services company with a semiconductor-cycle-linked core (abatement) and a smaller, more diversified project business (water). Its strategic differentiators are (i) breadth of abatement technology under one roof (burn-wet, plasma-wet, wet, pyrolysis, catalytic, electrostatic), (ii) high destruction efficiency for fluorinated greenhouse gases, increasingly important under carbon-pricing and Scope 1 targets, (iii) German engineering and manufacturing paired with dense Asian service networks, and (iv) the ability to integrate air and water treatment in the subfab. Its constraints are scale (an order of magnitude smaller than Ebara or Atlas Copco's vacuum and abatement business), concentration in semiconductor capex, and a manufacturing base concentrated in Dresden. ### End-markets served | End-market | Business unit | Relevance | |---|---|---| | Semiconductor front-end (logic, memory, power, analog) | Gas and Water | Core; largest customer group | | Photomask production | Gas | Niche, strategically visible (AMTC Dresden) | | Wafer / substrate manufacturing | Water | Okmetic project (Finland) | | LED / compound semiconductors (GaN, MOCVD) | Gas | LARCH burn-dry systems | | Photovoltaics / thin-film solar | Gas | Historical growth market since mid-2000s | | TFT / flat-panel display | Gas | Established | | MEMS / nanotechnology | Gas | Established | | Battery production | Water | Water-saving retrofit for a battery producer's scrubber system | | Food, beverage, dairy | Water | MBBR/flotation plants | | Pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, chemicals | Water | Biological and chemical-physical plants | | Paper | Water | Biological treatment | **Semiconductor front-end (logic, memory, power, analog):** Business unit: Gas and Water; Relevance: Core; largest customer group **Photomask production:** Business unit: Gas; Relevance: Niche, strategically visible (AMTC Dresden) **Wafer / substrate manufacturing:** Business unit: Water; Relevance: Okmetic project (Finland) **LED / compound semiconductors (GaN, MOCVD):** Business unit: Gas; Relevance: LARCH burn-dry systems **Photovoltaics / thin-film solar:** Business unit: Gas; Relevance: Historical growth market since mid-2000s **TFT / flat-panel display:** Business unit: Gas; Relevance: Established **MEMS / nanotechnology:** Business unit: Gas; Relevance: Established **Battery production:** Business unit: Water; Relevance: Water-saving retrofit for a battery producer's scrubber system **Food, beverage, dairy:** Business unit: Water; Relevance: MBBR/flotation plants **Pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, chemicals:** Business unit: Water; Relevance: Biological and chemical-physical plants **Paper:** Business unit: Water; Relevance: Biological treatment