Metrology measures up

SOURCE: THE INFORMATION NETWORK; ILLUSTRATION BY KELLY JOHNSONS

Think that chipmakers are rushing to buy more inspection and metrology tools as transistor sizes shrink? Think again, says Robert Castellano.

Revenue figures don’t bear out the traditional thinking that “the drive to smaller feature sizes dictates the need for more metrology and inspection tools,” says Castellano, president of The Information Network. A new report titled Metrology, Inspection, and Process Control in VLSI Manufacturing shows a 5.8% uptick in revenues in 2003 for all process control equipment, while the overall front-end equipment rose 3.6%.

“One would think that, as the technology is changing and you’re getting smaller feature sizes you’re becoming more concerned with the sizes of defects and contaminants, and, as a result, you would be buying more tools,” Castellano says. “What’s really happening is that [revenues] are more or less just tracking the overall market.”

Covering 2003-2005, the report forecasts lithography metrology system revenues to grow at a compound annual rate of 14.1% to more than $1 billion; wafer inspection/defect detection tool revenues to increase 15.3% to $1.57 billion; thin-film metrology equipment revenues to grow 12.7% to $520 million; and other process control systems to rise 18% to $461 million. Total process control revenues should increase from $2.3 billion to more than $3.5 billion by 2005.
Integrated metrology systems and the macrodefect detection segment are two bright spots, Castellano notes. Even though it represents only 1.2% of the entire process control equipment market, the integrated nonmetal thin-film segment grew 39.4% in 2003 to $27.9 million. Castellano forecasts further growth of 42.9% in 2004 to $39.9 million. Nova Measuring Instruments controlled 76% of this segment, and Nanometrics grew fastest at a 62.8% clip.

The macrodefect detection segment reached $26.5 million in 2003, an increase from $15.9 million in 2002, for a 66.6% rate of growth, Castellano notes. KLA-Tencor captured more than 45% of this market, but the big winner is August Technology. The vendor introduced its system in 2003 and saw revenues go from zilch to $7.8 million.

Castellano theorizes there are two reasons for the weak sales in the process control equipment segment. One is that there are not many new fabs coming on-line. A second reason is that rather than becoming more efficient, tools “are more extendable to smaller feature sizes as you’re going from node point to node point.”