Products and services
Supplying equipment to fabricate integrated circuits (IC), flat panel displays (FPD), and photovoltaic cells (PV),[3] according to Barron's in 2024, Tokyo Electron Ltd. is engaged in the "development, manufacture, and sale of semiconductor production equipment and industrial electronics products for flat panel display manufacturing equipment." It has three segments: Semiconductor Production Equipment (SPE), Flat Panel Display (FPD) Production Equipment and Others. Others includes logistics, facilities management, and insurance.[30] In 2023, it was reported that the company's FPD business had become "minor" in its earnings, while its SPE segment was steadily growing.[31] TEL's SPE segment develops and sells SPE such as coaters/developers, plasma etch systems, thermal processing systems, single wafer deposition systems, cleaning systems, and wafer probers. The FPD segment focuses on SPE for flat panel displays.[30] In 2024, services listed by the company included field solutions, engineering services, repairs and spare parts, upgrades and modifications, and overhauling used products.[32]
In 2012, TEL produced SPE for multiple purposes.[3] Among those purposes was thermal processing, involving the deposition of thin layers of dielectric material between transistors onto the silicon wafer surface, using a heated low-pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) or oxidation process.[33] Also in 2012, products involved photoresist coating and developing to project a microscopic circuitry pattern on the wafer in photolithography.[34] There was also plasma etching,[35] and products focused on wet surface preparation, using cleaning to remove contaminants such as dust.[36] Other product areas in 2012 included single wafer chemical vapor deposition, involving the deposition of thin layers of various materials, such as tungsten, tungsten silicide, titanium, titanium nitride, and tantalum oxide.[37]
