Onto Innovation Q&A

Silicon Semiconductor technical editor Mark Andrews recently spoke with Onto Innovation’s CEO Mike Plisinski about the merger of Nanometrics and Rudolph Technologies. Plisinski explores the benefits, challenges and opportunities of forming a new semiconductor supply chain entity by combining two industry leaders.

MA – When resources combine post-merger, each company contributes expertise, viewpoints and strategies which creates both challenges and opportunities. Looking at the merger from the perspective of each company, what are the primary near-term benefits and what might the industry expect from Onto Innovation over time?

MP – When I think about the benefits of the merger, I put them primarily in three categories: scale, scope, and synergy. Onto Innovation is now the fourth largest (by revenue) wafer fab equipment supplier in the U.S. and among the top 15 in the world. We have over $300 million in cash, cash equivalents or marketable securities and no debt. That gives us a lot of options to invest in our future. We are one of a few companies that is an end-to-end supplier, with products and applications ranging from unpatterned wafer quality, through advanced front-end metrology and macro defect inspection to advanced packaging lithography and inspection in the back-end, with enterprise software solutions spanning the entire value chain.