Axcelis Technologies, Inc. (Axcelis) designs, manufactures and services ion implantation and other processing equipment used in the fabrication of semiconductor chips.
The company’s Purion family of products offers the most innovative implanters available on the market today. The company sells to leading semiconductor chip manufacturers worldwide. In addition to equipment, the company provides extensive aftermarket lifecycle products and services, including used tools, spare parts, equipment up...
Axcelis Technologies, Inc. (Axcelis) designs, manufactures and services ion implantation and other processing equipment used in the fabrication of semiconductor chips.
The company’s Purion family of products offers the most innovative implanters available on the market today. The company sells to leading semiconductor chip manufacturers worldwide. In addition to equipment, the company provides extensive aftermarket lifecycle products and services, including used tools, spare parts, equipment upgrades, maintenance services and customer training.
The company continues to invest in research and development to ensure its products meet the needs of its customers. The company takes pride in its scientists and engineers who are adding to its portfolio of patents and proprietary technology to ensure that its investment in technology leadership translates into unique product advantages.
Ion Implantation Systems
Ion implantation is a principal step in the transistor formation cycle of the semiconductor chip manufacturing process. Ion implantation is also used to change the material characteristics of the silicon or silicon carbide for reasons other than electrical doping, a process known as ‘material modification.’ An ion implanter is a large, technically advanced system that injects dopants such as arsenic, boron or phosphorus into a wafer. These dopants are ionized and therefore have an electrical charge state. This electric charge state allows the dopants to be accelerated, focused and filtered with electric and magnetic fields. Ion implanters use these fields to create a beam of ions with a precisely defined energy level (ranging between several hundred and eight million electron-volts) and with a precisely defined beam level (ranging from microamps to milliamps).
Axcelis Ion Implanters
Axcelis offers a complete line of high energy, high current, and medium current implanters for all application requirements. The company’s Purion flagship systems are all based on a common platform which enables a unique combination of implant purity, precision, and productivity. Combining a state-of-the-art single wafer end station, with advanced spot beamarchitectures (that ensures all points across the wafer see the same beam condition at the same beam angle), Purion products enable exceptional process control to optimize device performance and yield, at high productivity.
In addition to the Purion family of ion implanters, the company offers the Ovation family of multi-wafer, or ‘batch’ implanters. These systems extend Axcelis’ industry benchmark GSD platform into the future, delivering the highest reliability, serviceability, and lowest cost of operations. The Ovation configuration is designed to seamlessly integrate with the existing fleet of Axcelis batch implanters, while providing incremental performance improvements with updated components for long-term sustainability.
Beyond the traditional categories of implanters, Axcelis has developed systems designed for specific applications. For example, the Axcelis Purion Power Series, which provides full recipe coverage for power device applications critical to electric vehicles and industrial applications. The Purion Power Series consists of a group of high current, medium current and high energy implanters that optimize semiconductor devices created on SiC wafers, which is advantageous for certain power devices.
An overview of specific Axcelis ion implantation products is below:
High Current Ion Implant
The company’s Purion H, Purion Dragon, Purion H200, and GSD/E2 Ovation spot beam, high current systems cover all traditional high current requirements as well as those associated with emerging and future devices. The company’s Purion high current capabilities extend beyond traditional high current energy and dose ranges, to cover new device fabrication requirements as well as to maximize capital utilization and flexibility. In addition, Axcelis’ Purion systems provide advantages for material modification applications, including those requiring hot and cold implant capabilities.
High Energy Ion Implant
Axcelis has been a market leader in high energy ion implanters for many years and offers a range of new Purion systems which have differentiated capabilities for specialty applications as well as legacy high energy systems. The company’s Purion XE, EXE, and other Purion high energy systems combine Axcelis’ production-proven RF Linac high energy, spot beam technology with the Purion platform wafer handling system. The Purion XE Power Series implanters include Purion XE and EXE models for high volume power devices aluminum implantation, available with 150mm SiC wafer handling or 200mm thin Si wafer handling. The company’s batch high energy systems include the GSD/HE Ovation implanter, a 10 stage Linac with energies up to 3 MeV and the GSD/VHE Ovation system, a 14 stage Linac with energies up to 4.9 MeV.
Medium Current Ion Implant
The company’s Purion M Si and SiC medium current systems offer higher productivity and lower electrical energy consumption compared to competitive offerings, in addition to other advantages. With high energy capability far beyond competitive implanters, the Purion M is ideal for fabs at higher elevations or those dealing with heavy mass species.
The company’s ion implant products will continue to meet customer demand for advantages in productivity, process performance and technical extendibility.
Aftermarket Support and Services
Through the company’s CS&I business, it offers its customers extensive aftermarket service and support throughout the lifecycle of the equipment the company manufactures. Approximately 3,300 of the company’s products are in use in 28 countries worldwide. The service and support that the company provides includes used tools, spare parts, equipment upgrades, and maintenance services.
To support the company’s aftermarket business, it has sales and marketing personnel, field service engineers, and spare parts and applications engineers, as well as employees located at the company’s manufacturing facilities who work with its customers to provide customer training and documentation, and product, process, and applications support.
Most of the company’s customers maintain spare parts inventories for its machines. In addition to the company’s web-based spare parts management and replenishment tracking program, it offers several Business-to-Business options to support the company’s customers’ parts management requirements. The company’s Axcelis Managed Inventory service offering provides the customer with full spare parts support through a parts consignment arrangement in which Axcelis retains responsibility for the complete supply chain. These services provide ease of use alternatives that reduce order fulfillment costs and improve cycle time, resulting in an expanded customer base for this service offering.
Sales and Marketing
The company primarily sells its equipment and services through the company’s direct sales force. The company conducts sales and marketing activities from its sales offices located in the United States, Taiwan, South Korea, China, Singapore, Japan, Germany and Italy.
Customers
In 2024, according to Gartner Inc., the top 20 semiconductor chip manufacturers accounted for approximately 87.6% of total semiconductor capital equipment spending. These manufacturers are from the largest semiconductor chip manufacturing regions in the world: the United States, Asia Pacific (Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Japan and China) and Europe.
Research and Development
The company’s expenses for research and development were $105.5 million in 2024.
Competition
In the market for ion implantation systems, the company mainly competes against Applied Materials, Inc. (Applied Materials). Axcelis and Applied Materials are the only ion implant system manufacturers with a full range of implant products. Other implantation equipment manufacturers the company competes with include Sumitomo Heavy Industries Ion Technology Co. Ltd. and Nissin Ion Equipment Co., Ltd in Japan, Advanced Ion Beam Technology, Inc. in Taiwan, as well as Kingstone Semiconductor and CETC Electronics Equipment Group Co., Ltd. in the People’s Republic of China.
Intellectual Property
As of December 31, 2024, the company had 185 active patents issued in the United States and 349 active patents granted in other countries, as well as 160 patent applications (58 in the United States and 102 in other countries) on file with various patent agencies worldwide. Patents are generally in effect for up to 20 years from the filing of the application.
Environmental
Axcelis is deeply committed to the company’s role as a responsible corporate citizen and dedicated to its Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) and Net Zero commitments. In 2022, Axcelis became a founding member of the Semiconductor Climate Consortium (SCC) of Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI), the company’s industry organization serving the manufacturing supply chain for the micro- and nano-electronics industries.
History
Axcelis Technologies, Inc. was founded in 1978. The company was incorporated in Delaware in 1995.