Amtech Systems, Inc. provides equipment, consumables and services for semiconductor wafer fabrication and device packaging.
The company’s products are used in fabricating semiconductor devices, such as silicon carbide (SiC) and silicon (Si) power devices, digital and analog devices, power electronic packages, advanced semiconductor packages and electronic assemblies. The company sells these products to semiconductor device and module manufacturers worldwide, particularly in Asia, North America...
Amtech Systems, Inc. provides equipment, consumables and services for semiconductor wafer fabrication and device packaging.
The company’s products are used in fabricating semiconductor devices, such as silicon carbide (SiC) and silicon (Si) power devices, digital and analog devices, power electronic packages, advanced semiconductor packages and electronic assemblies. The company sells these products to semiconductor device and module manufacturers worldwide, particularly in Asia, North America and Europe.
The company’s semiconductor fabrication solutions include consumables, equipment and services for wafer polishing, cleaning, slicing and dicing. The company’s thermal processing solutions include reflow equipment for chip packaging and electronic assembly, diffusion furnaces and furnaces used to produce ceramic based power semiconductor packages and passive electronic components.
The focus of the company’s strategy is to expand its consumables and service business for semiconductor wafer fabrication and to capitalize on opportunities for thermal processing equipment in advanced packaging and power electronic applications.
Segments
The company operates through two segments, Thermal Processing Solutions and Semiconductor Fabrication Solutions.
As of September 30, 2024, one Thermal Processing Solutions customer represented 12% of the company’s accounts receivable. In 2024, 59% of the company’s net revenue came from customers outside of North America as follows: Asia - 43% (including China - 20%, Malaysia - 12% and Taiwan - 8%); and Europe - 16% (including Germany - 6% and the Czech Republic - 3%).
These reportable segments are consisted of the following five wholly-owned subsidiaries:
Thermal Processing Solutions (formerly called Semiconductor):
BTU, a Delaware corporation based in Westford, Massachusetts, with operations in China, Malaysia and the U.K., acquired in January 2015.
Semiconductor Fabrication Solutions (formerly called Material and Substrate):
PR Hoffman, an Arizona corporation based in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, acquired in July 1997;
Advanced Compound Materials, Inc., a Delaware corporation based in Spartanburg, South Carolina, founded in 2023;
Intersurface Dynamics, a Connecticut corporation based in Bethel, Connecticut, acquired in March 2021; and
Entrepix, an Arizona corporation based in Phoenix, Arizona, acquired in January 2023.
In both of the company’s divisions the company is focused on semiconductor and related processes and markets. Amtech is uniquely positioned in that the company’s products are employed throughout the early and late stages of semiconductor and electronics manufacturing. The company’s products are key to the earliest stages of silicon or silicon carbide wafer manufacturing, then in semiconductor device manufacturing, then advanced semiconductor packaging and then finally in electronics assembly. The company’s thermal processing solutions business provides high performance equipment used in solder reflow operations for advanced semiconductor packaging and electronic assembly, furnaces used for producing power semiconductor packaging substrates and electronic components, and diffusion furnaces used in wafer processing.
The company’s equipment provides the precise temperature, atmospheric control and uniformity required to achieve high yields in mass production reflow operations. The company’s flux management system scrubs oven gasses to minimize downtime, reduce defects from flux contamination and reduce environmental emissions.
The company’s Semiconductor Fabrication Solutions business provides processing consumables, equipment and services for wafer production. The company’s PR Hoffman consumables are used for lapping and Chemical Mechanical Planarization (CMP) processes in the manufacturing of SiC and Si power devices, analog devices, optics, ceramics and photonics. The company’s Entrepix products and services include equipment for SiC and Si wafer cleaning, testing equipment used for optimizing CMP processes, CMP equipment parts and services, and CMP foundry services. The company’s Intersurface Dynamics products include lubricants, cooling fluids and cleaning chemicals used for semiconductor wafer and optics processing and dispersants for CMP slurries.
The company’s product portfolio, developed through a track record of technological innovation, as well as the integration of key acquisitions, provides exceptional value to semiconductor manufacturing by increasing yields, efficiency and throughput. The company has been providing manufacturing solutions to the semiconductor industry for over 30 years and has leveraged the company’s semiconductor technology and industry presence to capitalize on growth opportunities.
Acquisitions
On January 17, 2023, the company acquired 100% of the issued and outstanding capital stock of Entrepix, Inc. (Entrepix), an Arizona based manufacturer of chemical mechanical polishing (‘CMP’) technology. Entrepix’s CMP technology portfolio and water cleaning equipment complements the company’s existing substrate polishing and wet process chemical offerings. Entrepix's results of operations are included in the company’s Semiconductor Fabrication Solutions segment from the date of acquisition.
Growth and Investment Strategy
There are three key secular trends that are key to the company’s future growth:
Advanced Mobility - Advanced Mobility encompasses both the development and adoption of electric vehicles and charging infrastructure, including both EV and HEV, as well as advanced automotive electronics including Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (‘ADAS’), infotainment and telematics. The company’s products intersect these markets in multiple ways: CMP consumables and wafer cleaning systems for the SiC substrates used in the EV power invertors; thermal processing systems for producing EV battery cooling systems and ceramic substrates for HEV power semiconductor packaging; and reflow ovens for ADAS, infotainment and telematics component assemblies.
Supply Chain Resiliency - There is a global trend of creating supply chain resiliency by expanding and/or relocating operations outside of mainland China. These facilities will create demand for new equipment and services in growing regions like Mexico and Southeast Asia.
Artificial Intelligence - With Artificial Intelligence (‘AI’), the company’s reflow oven systems are the favored choice for Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test Services (‘OSATS’) providers who perform advanced packaging of the AI chips.
The company continues to invest in research and development, including the introduction of the company’s next-generation reflow platform, Aurora, in 2023. Historically, the company has grown its business primarily through acquisitions, including the businesses that comprise the company’s two reportable segments in the Thermal Processing Solutions and Semiconductor Fabrication Solutions industries: BTU, PR Hoffman, Intersurface Dynamics and Entrepix. The company’s 2023 acquisition of Entrepix bolstered the company’s offerings in the CMP technology space and incorporated wafer cleaning into the company’s existing capital equipment product lines. The company will continue to pursue acquisitions to supplement organic growth and have added market development resources globally to accelerate organic growth.
The company’s strategies are to grow consumables revenue to reduce vulnerability to semiconductor business cycles; increase the portion of the company’s product line portfolio tied to high-growth, megatrend end markets, such as EV and HEV; emphasize and prioritize customer-centric product development in all of its divisions; and enhance and invest in legacy business operations.
Thermal Processing and Semiconductor Fabrication Solutions Operations
The company provides reflow equipment for chip packaging and electronic assembly, diffusion furnaces for wafer processing and furnaces used to produce ceramic based power semiconductor packages and passive electronic components, as well as wafer cleaning equipment, CMP polishing consumables, wafer processing lubricants, coolants and cleaning chemicals and related services to leading semiconductor manufacturers.
As demand for increasingly sophisticated electronic devices continues, new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), EVs, HEVs, advances in consumer electronics, 5G communications, and IoT will help drive future growth. Electronic equipment continues to become more complex, yet end users demand smaller, lighter and less expensive devices. This trend, in turn, requires increased performance and reduced cost for electronic assemblies, printed circuit boards and semiconductors. In response to these developments, manufacturers are increasingly employing more sophisticated production and assembly techniques requiring more advanced manufacturing equipment and related consumables.
Although the semiconductor market has experienced significant growth over the past fifteen years, it remains cyclical by nature. The market is characterized by short-term periods of under or over utilization of capacity for most semiconductors, including microprocessors, memory, power management chips and other logic devices. When capacity utilization decreases due to the addition of excess capacity, semiconductor manufacturers typically slow their purchasing of capital equipment. Conversely, when capacity utilization increases, so does capital spending. The continued expansion of the company’s consumable and aftermarket product offerings, primarily in the company’s Semiconductor Fabrication Solutions segment, will enable the company to partially offset some of these cyclical effects.
Thermal Processing Solutions Products
The company’s furnace equipment is manufactured in its facilities in Massachusetts and China and via contract manufacturers in Canada and Mexico. The following paragraphs describe the products that comprise the company’s product lines in its semiconductor business:
Continuous Thermal Processing Systems. The company produces and sells thermal processing systems used in the solder reflow and curing stages of printed circuit board assembly, as well as systems for the thermal processes used in advanced semiconductor packaging, including 2.5D and flip-chip. In electronics assembly the company’s ovens are used primarily in the advanced, high-density segments of the market that utilize surface mount technology.
Flip-chip reflow provides the physical and electronic bond of the semiconductor device to its package. The company’s range of convection reflow systems, utilizing closed loop convection technology, are rated at up to 400°C and operate in air or nitrogen atmospheres. These products are manufactured at the company’s ISO 9001:2015 certified facility in Shanghai, China and utilize forced impingement convection technology to transfer heat to the substrate. Using configurable heating elements of up to eight kilowatts, they can process substrates in dual-lane, dual-speed configurations, thereby enabling the company’s customers to double production without increasing the machine’s footprint. These products are available in four models based on the heated lengths of thermal processing chambers. Heated length is based on the customer's required production rate and loading requirements.
High-Temperature Belt Furnace. The company also produces and sells high-temperature belt furnaces, which have been manufactured in North America for over six decades with ISO 9001:2015 quality certification safe-guarding that each unit is subject to exacting build and test criteria. These furnaces operate at temperatures up to 1180°C and are capable of processing in controlled atmospheres, such as nitrogen, argon, and hydrogen. Applications include DBC, furnace brazing, annealing, glass-to-metal sealing, sintering, and heat-treating for diverse markets, including automotive, semiconductors, aerospace and medical.
Horizontal Diffusion Furnaces. The company produces and sells 200mm and 300mm horizontal diffusion and deposition furnaces. The company’s horizontal furnaces address several steps in the semiconductor manufacturing process, including diffusion, high temperature oxidation (used in silicon power chips), and annealing.
The company’s horizontal furnaces generally consist of three large modules: the load station, where the loading of the wafers occurs; the furnace section, which is consisted of one to four thermal reactor chambers; and the gas distribution cabinet, where the flow of gases into the reactor chambers is controlled and is often configured through a range of options to meet the requirements of the company’s customers’ particular process needs. The horizontal furnaces utilize a combination of existing industry and proprietary technologies and are sold primarily to semiconductor customers. The company’s products are capable of processing all existing wafer sizes.
Semiconductor Fabrication Solutions Products
The company’s Semiconductor Fabrication Solutions segment manufactures the products described below in Arizona, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Connecticut and sells them under the company’s Entrepix, PR Hoffman and Intersurface Dynamics brand names.
Double-Sided Wafer Cleaning System. The Entrepix Double-Sided Wafer Cleaning System (OnTrak) is a single wafer cleaner that uses water or mild chemistries supplied through PVA brushes to clean both sides of a substrate simultaneously. These wafers (substrates) require cleaning following various process steps that leave the substrate contaminated by material particles. The system is designed to accept wet wafers in and send each substrate through two brush cleaning steps followed by a rinse and a spin dry while also providing heat via a high-powered lamp to dry any residual liquid droplets. The Entrepix cleaner is commonly used in post polishing steps, prime silicon/silicon carbide cleaning, epitaxial silicon deposition processes, and general wafer cleaning needs.
Entegrity Head Tester. The Entrepix Entegrity Head Tester is a table-top CMP head testing system that provides the company’s customers with invaluable data regarding their head consumables that make up the polishing heads. The system allows users to customize operation and recipe programming. This allows the user to test individual zones for leaks or cross talk and track each head's performance by generating data that can be used to track issues with head rebuild before it is installed on the polisher. The Entegrity’s user friendly touch interface displays data in real time, and also provides a live graph of the individual zone’s performance. The ability to scan each head barcode prior to testing allows the user to create a data set for each specific head that can be viewed on the screen or downloaded via network connection.
Substrate Carriers. The company manufactures carriers in a variety of sizes and materials. Sizes range from 3 to 38 inches in diameter using a variety of special steels, laminates and extruded polymer raw materials. Silicon wafers, compound semiconductor wafers, and large optics require these special insert carriers. These carriers combine the strength of hardened steel as the processing backbone with a softer plastic material in the work holes known as an insert. Inserts are permanently molded into the work holes via a pressurized process. These inserted work holes provide smoother processing, improved wafer total thickness variation (TTV) and improved wafer edge quality. Insert carriers are available for all wafer sizes from 75mm to 450mm and can be made from hardened and tempered carbon steel or specialized stainless steel when metal contamination is a processing concern. Insert carriers are widely accepted as the industry solution for both prime wafer and reclaim wafer manufacturers when dual sided lapping or polishing are utilized in the front-end wafer process.
Substrate Polishing Templates. The company’s polishing templates are used to securely hold SiC, silicon, sapphire or other wafer materials in place during single-sided wax-free CMP polishing processes. Polishing templates are customized for specific applications and are manufactured to extremely tight tolerances. The company offers a variety of options to provide the best solution for each specific process. Polishing templates are manufactured for all brands of tools and virtually any wax-free customer process. Critical front-end wafer surface specifications are finalized during the polishing process.
Substrate Process Chemicals. Through Intersurface Dynamics, the company produces and sells substrate process chemicals which are used to achieve specific surface morphologies on a variety of materials. The company’s substrate process chemical customers include some of the world's largest manufacturers of semiconductor devices, silicon wafers, precision optics, ophthalmic lens, advanced displays and flat glass. The company offers three different product lines: Tensor Series Products, Vector Series Products, and Challenge Series Products. Tensor Series Products are used by manufacturers of integrated circuits in applications, such as cleaning, etching, dicing and CMP. Vector Series Products were designed specifically for grinding, sawing, lapping, cleaning, etching and polishing semiconductor materials, such as silicon wafers. Challenge Series Products address similar processes for manufacturers of precision optics, technical ceramics and advanced displays helping to achieve optimum yields.
Customers
The company’s customers are primarily manufacturers of semiconductor substrates, devices and electronic assemblies. Additionally, the company’s Semiconductor Fabrication Solutions segment also serves customers in the ceramics and optics industries. During 2024, 59% of the company’s net revenue came from customers outside of North America. In 2024, net revenue was distributed among customers in the following geographic regions: North/South America 41% (39% of which is in the United States); Asia 43% (including 20% in China, 12% in Malaysia and 8% in Taiwan); and Europe 16% (including 6% in Germany and 3% in Czech Republic).
Sales and Marketing
Due to the highly technical nature of the company’s products, the company markets its products primarily by direct customer contact through the company’s sales personnel and through a network of domestic and international independent sales representatives and distributors that specialize in semiconductor equipment and supplies. The company’s promotional activities include direct sales contacts, participation in trade shows, advertising and press releases in trade magazines and digital marketing, including website SEO and pay-per-click advertising.
The company uses a mix of direct sales, representatives and distributors globally. Manufacturer representatives provide sales coverage in specific geographic regions and are paid a commission when products are sold. Sales to distributors are generally on terms comparable to sales to end-user customers, as the company’s distributors generally quote their customers after first obtaining a quote from the company and have an order from the end-user before placing an order with the company. Its sales to distributors are not contingent on their future sales and do not include a general right of return. Historically, returns have been rare. Distributors of the company’s semiconductor equipment do not stock a significant amount of the company’s products, as the inventory they hold is generally limited to parts needed to provide timely repairs to customers. The company’s manufacturer representatives and distributors are closely managed by the company’s global sales team.
Historically, each of the company’s segments have been responsible for their own sales and marketing activities, including managing sales personnel and representative and distributor relationships, however, as the company continues to refocus and grow its organization, the company is developing opportunities for increased collaboration and teamwork across the company’s divisions. These cross-segment collaboration opportunities will continue to be a focus at all levels and departments of the company, as they can lead to greater efficiencies while reducing operating costs.
Competition
The Thermal Processing Solutions Market
Competitors of the company’s horizontal diffusion furnaces include Centrotherm GmbH and CVD Equipment, Inc. The company’s in-line, controlled atmosphere furnaces compete primarily against products offered by Centrotherm and SierraTherm/Schmid Thermal Systems.
Semiconductor Fabrication Solutions Markets
Entrepix competes with other cleaning equipment providers, including Screen and TEL with the OnTrak double sided scrubber.
Entrepix’s strategy consists of providing solutions for obsolete equipment for legacy 200mm, 300mm and smaller wafer processing equipment where support has been discontinued by the OEM. In addition, Entrepix provides support for their customers various wafer production and R&D requirements in their class 1000 clean room foundry.
Intersurface Dynamics competes with much larger companies, such as Entegris, Inc. and Cabot.
Research, Development and Engineering (RD&E)
In 2024, the company recorded RD&E expense of $4.2 million.
History
The company was founded in 1981. It was incorporated in 1981. The company was formerly known as Quartz Engineering & Materials, Inc. and changed its name to Amtech Systems, Inc. in 1987.
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