Can't recall the name of the company that makes the Dynascope metrology tool? Or it's the last night of the tech conference and you're just looking to win a bar bet on how many AFMs Veeco Instruments makes? VLSI Research may have the perfect tool for you.

The market research firm has taken the results of approximately 20 years of collecting, collating, and characterizing process gear data and put them on its Web site. VLSI says its new equipment model database is the first such publicly available record of chipmaking tools and their manufacturers. The searchable database lists manufacturer, model name, market segment, and tool type. And a definition field briefly describes what an ellipsometer from, say, KLA-Tencor does.

Hua Bai, project manager for the firm's Data Storm business, oversees the on-line endeavor. VLSI spent many hours collecting the public information, says Bai. Now, the firm "would like to share the information with people."

The database's 216 pages contain approximately 10,000 separate rows for old and new process gear, beginning with mixed-signal testers from 3MTS and ending with Zygo/Technical Instruments' surface profiler. The new service is at www.vlsiresearch.com. Click on the Reference section link and look for Equipment Model Database in the Public Area header.

Oh, the Dynascope tool? The answer is Vision Engineering.