In 2011, the semiconductor metrology/inspection equipment market grew 24.8 percent, while overall semiconductor equipment grew 9.3 percent.
This information comes courtesy of The Information Network’s report “Metrology, Inspection, and Process Control in VLSI Manufacturing”.
The semiconductor metrology/inspection market outperformed the overall semiconductor equipment market, even though historically, sales of process control tools tend to mirror sales of the entire front-end equipment market.
For 2011, the top three metrology/inspection suppliers were KLA-Tencor, Hitachi High Tech, and Applied Materials.
The Information Network is a leading consulting and market research company addressing the semiconductor, LCD, HDD, nano, and solar industries.