| Type | Public (NASDAQ: KLAC) S&P 500 Component |
|---|---|
| Industry | SemiconductorEquipment & Materials |
| Founded | 1997 (merger of KLA and Tencor) |
| Headquarters | Milpitas, California, United States |
| Key people | Edward W. (Ned) Barnholt, Chairman Richard P. (Rick) Wallace, CEO Mark Dentinger, CFO |
| Products | Chip Manufacturing; Wafer Manufacturing; Reticle Manufacturing; Data Storage Media/Head Manufacturing; Solar Manufacturing; High Brightness LED Manufacturing; Compound Semiconductor Manufacturing; MEMS Manufacturing; General Purpose, Labs. |
| Revenue | $3.2 billion USD (2011) |
| Employees | 5,800 (2011) |
| Website | www.kla-tencor.com |
KLA-Tencor Corporation (NASDAQ: KLAC) is a supplier of process control and yield management solutions for the semiconductor and related microelectronics industries. These technologies serve the semiconductor, data storage, LED, photovoltaic, and other related nanoelectronics industries. The company's portfolio of products, software, analysis, services and expertise is designed to help IC manufacturers manage yield throughout the entire wafer fabrication process-from R & D to final yield analysis.
KLA-Tencor offers a broad spectrum of products and services that include in-line wafer defect monitoring; reticle and photomask defect inspection; wafer overlay; film and surface measurement; and overall yield- and fab-wide data analysis.
In the semiconductor industry, the fabrication of an integrated circuit (IC), or chip, is accomplished by depositing a series of film layers upon a silicon wafer, which forms the foundation of the chip. A single wafer may hold hundreds of chips, each of which will go on to power electronic devices such as MP3 players, cell phones, personal computers and more.
The chip is built layer by layer from patterned films of conducting, semiconducting or insulating materials. The role of KLA-Tencor’s products in this process is to monitor the defectivity and physical characteristics of each step, allowing the manufacturer to better control each process and maximize chip yield.
Contents |
KLA-Tencor was formed in April 1997 through the merger of KLA Instruments (KLA) and Tencor Instruments (Tencor), two long-time leaders in the semiconductor equipment industry. Prior to the merger, both businesses served a segment of the inspection and metrology area; with KLA focused on defect inspection and Tencor placing its emphasis on metrology. Merging together in a one-to-one stock swap valued at $1.3 billion, KLA-Tencor became the most important process control player in the industry, bringing to market a complete line of yield management products and services from a single company.
KLA was named after its founders, Ken Levy and Bob Anderson. The word “Tencor” came about because the founder of Tencor, Karel Urbanek, wanted a two syllable name that would be easy to remember.
KLA Instruments was first established in 1975, with its first product emerging on the market in 1978—an automated inspection system that reduced photomask inspection time from eight hours to 15 minutes. Shortly thereafter, KLA Instruments went public and expanded its inspection product portfolio to include patterned wafer inspection systems. Two years later, KLA further broadened its offerings into the wafer metrology business through optical overlay and line-width measurement systems. During the subsequent few years, the company expanded its product base through the development of software tools to help integrate inspection and measurement data for analysis—ultimately forming the industry’s first yield management group to provide customers with expertise in yield enhancement through engineering consulting services.
1977, Tencor Instruments established its name, and first introduced its product—the Alpha-Step stylus surface profiler—just seven months later. This tool provided significant improvement in step-height measurement, a critical parameter in measuring film layer thickness. In 1984, Tencor Instruments launched its first Surfscan product—a particle and contamination defect system based on laser scanning technology, which soon became the production standard. By the late 1990s, Tencor had broadened its product offerings to also include defect review and data analysis tools. Following an initial public offering in 1993, Tencor then acquired Prometrix, a leading supplier of thin-film measurement tools, and further expanded its product offering. At the time of its merger with KLA, Tencor had revenues of approximately $403 million and 1,400 employees around the world.
Since the merger in 1997, KLA-Tencor has acquired the following companies: 1998 • Amray Inc. • Nanopro GmbH • The Quantox product line from Keithley Instruments, Inc • VARS • The Ultrapointe subsidiary of Uniphase Corporation 1999 • ACME Systems Inc. 2000 • Fab Solutions, from ObjectSpace Inc. • FINLE Technologies, Inc. 2001 • Phase Metrics 2004 • Candela Instruments • Wafer Inspection Systems business of Inspex, Inc. 2006 • ADE Corporation 2007 • OnWafer Technologies • SensArray Corporation • Therma-Wave Corporation 2008 • ICOS Vision Systems Corporation NV • Microelectronic Inspection Equipment (MIE) business unit of Vistec Semiconductor Systems 2010 • Ambios Technology
KLA-Tencor continues to serve the semiconductor equipment industry and also a number of other industries, including the light emitting diode (LED), data storage and photovoltaic industries, as well as general materials research. With a comprehensive portfolio of products, services, software and expertise, KLA-Tencor helps nanoeletronics manufacturers manage yield throughout their fabrication process—from research and development to final volume production. Designed to accelerate development and production ramp cycles, KLA-Tencor’s products and solutions help customers achieve higher and more stable, while improving overall profitability. In 2011 KLA-Tencor celebrated its 35th anniversary.
The semiconductor or chip industry is KLA-Tencor’s core focus. The semiconductor fabrication process begins with a bare silicon wafer—a round disk that is six, eight or twelve inches in diameter, about as thick as a credit card and gray in color. The process of manufacturing wafers is itself highly sophisticated, involving the creation of large ingots of silicon by pulling them out of a vat of molten silicon. The ingots are then sliced into wafers and polished to a mirror finish. The manufacturing cycle of an IC is grouped into three phases: design, fabrication and testing. IC design involves the architectural layout of the circuit, as well as design verification and reticle generation. The fabrication of a chip is accomplished by depositing a series of film layers that act as conductors, semiconductors or insulators. The deposition of these film layers is interspersed with numerous other process steps that create circuit patterns, remove portions of the film layers, and perform other functions such as heat treatment, measurement and inspection. Most advanced chip designs require hundreds of individual steps, many of which are performed multiple times. Most chips consist of two main structures: the lower structure, typically consisting of transistors or capacitors which perform the “smart” functions of the chip; and the upper “interconnect” structure, typically consisting of circuitry which connects the components in the lower structure. When all of the layers on the wafer have been fabricated, each chip on the wafer is tested for functionality. The wafer is then cut into individual devices, and those chips that passed functional testing are packaged. Final testing is performed on all packaged chips.
Richard P. (Rick) Wallace
Chief Executive Officer
Richard (Rick) P. Wallace currently serves as the President and Chief Executive Officer KLA-Tencor Corporation. Previously, Mr. Wallace served as President and Chief Operating Officer from July 2005 through December 2005. He began at KLA Instruments in 1988 as an applications engineer and has held various general management positions throughout his 22 years with the company. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI), an industry trade association and Beckman Coulter, an Orange-County based biomedical company. Earlier in his career, Mr. Wallace held positions with Ultratech Stepper and Cypress Semiconductor.
Mr. Wallace earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan and his master’s degree in engineering management from Santa Clara University, where he taught strategic marketing and global competitiveness courses after his graduation.
Ben Tsai
EVP, Chief Technology Officer and Corporate Alliances
Ben Tsai is executive vice president, CTO and Corporate Alliances for KLA-Tencor. In his post, Dr. Tsai is responsible for setting the technology direction for the company, business development, corporate alliances and venture investments. He is a key member of KLA-Tencor’s executive management team, and has held numerous positions at KLA-Tencor and KLA Instruments, prior to the KLA-Tencor merger.
At KLA-Tencor, Dr. Tsai has served as group vice president, CTO of systems and general manager for the Wafer Inspection Division. Prior to the KLA-Tencor merger, Dr. Tsai filled the post of CTO at KLA Instruments as well as numerous executive positions in the Wafer Inspection Division. Dr. Tsai also spent two years as general manager of engineering for KLA Acrotec, a joint venture between KLA Instruments and Japan Energy. In addition to working for KLA-Tencor and KLA Instruments, Dr. Tsai was senior vice president and executive officer, technology at Tokyo Electron Limited, a leading global supplier of semiconductor production equipment. Dr. Tsai currently serves on the board of Varian Semiconductor Associates Inc. Dr. Tsai is also a member of the Technical Advisory Board of Ultratech Inc.
Dr. Tsai holds more than 30 patents in the areas of inspection and metrology. He received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the National Taiwan University and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Mark P. Dentinger
Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Mark P. Dentinger serves as KLA-Tencor’s Chief Financial Officer. In his position, he oversees and manages the company’s Corporate Finance, Operational Finance, Investor Relations and corporate control processes. Furthermore, Dentinger ensures that KLA-Tencor continues to maintain a strong financial foundation to support its growth strategy and future business objectives.
Prior to working for KLA-Tencor, Dentinger held various senior finance roles during his nine years at BEA Systems, Inc. (now part of Oracle Corporation), including Chief Financial Officer for the last three years. In his former post, he managed all aspects of Finance, Investor Relations, Legal, Facilities, and Information Technology, among various other financial roles within the company. Previous to this, Dentinger worked at Compaq Computer Corporation (now part of Hewlett-Packard) for six years. There he served in various financial management positions until he was appointed Director of Finance, High Performance Systems Manufacturing, in 1996. Before joining Compaq, Dentinger spent nearly a decade at Ernst & Young where he worked as a Junior Staff Auditor and later a Senior Manager.
Dentinger received his Bachelor of Science in Economics from St. Mary’s College of California and his MBA in Finance from the University of California at Berkeley.
Kenneth Levy
Kenneth Levy is Chairman Emeritus of the KLA-Tencor Corporation. Levy has been associated with the semiconductor capital equipment industry for more than 30 years.
After receiving his Bachelor and Masters degrees in Electrical Engineering and spending six years in the aerospace simulation field, Levy joined the startup team at Computervision Corporation. He was responsible for Computervision's entry into the semiconductor capital equipment industry through their Cobilt Division.
Levy founded KLA Instruments Corporation in 1976. Under his leadership, KLA came to dominate new market areas in the semiconductor manufacturing instrumentation field innovating technologies in areas such as photomask and reticle inspection, wafer defect inspection, wafer metrology, and yield management software.
KLA Instruments and Tencor Instruments merged in 1997.
In addition to his duties at KLA-Tencor, Mr. Levy serves as a director emeritus on the board of Semiconductor Equipment and Materials Institute (SEMI), and as a board member of Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Ultratech Stepper, Inc. He also serves on the boards of several privately-held companies and acts as advisor to two venture capital partnerships.
In recognition of his many contributions to the industry, Mr. Levy has received numerous awards, including the "SEMMY" Semiconductor Equipment and Materials Institute award in the area of wafer fabrication, the SEMI Lifetime Achievement award, the Harvard Business School Association "Entrepreneur of the Year" award, and elected membership in the National Academy of Engineering, "for the development and commercialization of automated inspection systems for the semiconductor industry."
Karel Urbanek (1938–1991)
Founder of Tencor Instruments
Karel Urbanek founded Tencor Instruments, which merged with KLA Instruments in 1997.
After graduating from the Charles University Faculty of Mathematics and Physics in 1963, Urbanek immigrated to the United States from Prague, Czechslovakia. He spent a short time at MIT’s Lincoln Labs in Cambridge before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area, where, after five years at Varian Associates, he founded Randex, Inc.—a maker of sputtering equipment for semiconductor manufacturing. In 1976, Urbanek founded Tencor Instruments, which provided measurement and process control equipment for the manufacture of semiconductor chips.
In 1977, seven months after the company’s inception, Tencor Instruments introduced its first product, the Alpha-Step. Seven years later, Tencor Instruments launched Surfscan, a product that detects particles on wafers, which continues to be a part of KLA-Tencor’s leading defect detection product portfolio today. Urbanek continued his leadership of the thriving company as its CEO and Chairman of the Board until his untimely death in 1991.
In 1986, Urbanek became a member of the SEMI board of directors and later vice chairman and member of the executive committee of the board. Urbanek was a dedicated leader of the SEMI International Standards Program, which continues to be a cornerstone of the semiconductor industry. The Karel Urbanek Award, established in 1992, is the most prestigious honor for participants in the SEMI International Standards Program. It is presented regularly to outstanding program members who uphold and further Urbanek’s contributions to the development of standards for the semiconductor and related microelectronics industries.
KLA-Tencor’s products and services enable customers’ achievement of their time-to-market goals, in an environment of increased chip design and manufacturing complexities and tremendous economic pressure from competitors. By helping accelerate the time to develop, ramp and attain production yields for each IC product, KLA-Tencor’s metrology and inspection systems have a direct and tangible impact on bottom-line profitability.
The manufacturing processes KLA-Tencor’s tools affect include: chip manufacturing, wafer manufacturing, reticle manufacturing, data storage/media head manufacturing, photovoltaic (solar) manufacturing, high-brightness light emitting diode (HBLED) manufacturing, compound semiconductor manufacturing, MEMS manufacturing, and general purpose/labs.
KLA-Tencor’s core product selection includes inspection and metrology (measurement) tools for reticle, substrate and IC manufacturing.
Reticle Inspection - Error-free reticles and photomasks are the first step in achieving high yields, since reticle defects can be replicated on production wafers. Mask shops and IC fabs rely on KLA-Tencor’s high-sensitivity reticle inspection systems to ensure that masks are defect-free when they are shipped to the fab, and that they remain defect-free during the fabrication process.
Wafer Inspection - KLA-Tencor’s wafer inspection product line can be further divided into patterned wafer, monitor wafer and bare substrate inspection. Patterned wafer defect inspection, review and analysis tools allow engineers to detect, count, classify and characterize yield failures caused by particles, pattern defects and electrical issues during all stages of the chip manufacturing process. Monitor-wafer and bare-substrate defect inspection include specialized tools used to detect, count and bin defects, then assess surface quality on blanket (unpatterned) films and bare substrate surfaces for process and tool qualification and monitoring.
Metrology - KLA-Tencor’s metrology solutions address integrated-circuit, substrate, photovoltaic solar cell and medical device manufacturing, as well as scientific research and other applications. Precise metrology and control of surface topography and electro-optical properties are growing in importance in many industries as critical dimensions narrow, film thicknesses shrink to countable numbers of atomic layers and devices become more complex. KLA-Tencor’s metrology systems are manufactured and developed in the company's plant in Migdal HaEmek, Israel.