Veeco

Veeco Instruments Inc. is a global capital equipment supplier, headquartered in the U.S., that designs and builds processing systems used in semiconductor and compound semiconductor manufacturing, data storage and scientific markets for applications such as advanced packaging, photonics, power electronics and display technologies.

Veeco's processing system capabilities include laser annealing, photolithography, ion beam etch and deposition, metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), wet wafer processing, molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), atomic layer deposition (ALD), physical vapor deposition (PVD), dicing and lapping, and gas and vapor delivery.

These technologies are used to enable artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, high performance computing, autonomous vehicles, 5G wireless communication networks and cloud storage.[2]

In October 2025, Veeco announced a merger with Axcelis Technologies.

History

Veeco was incorporated in 1945 by two scientists, Frank Raible and Al Nerken, who created the helium leak detector. The company's name "Veeco" stood for Vacuum Electronic Equipment Company.

Products

Front end of line (FEOL) semiconductor systems include:

Advanced packaging systems include:

Systems used in the manufacturing of MEMS devices and RF filters include:

Systems used for compound semiconductor applications:

Veeco's MOCVD tools are used for the deposition of III-V compound semiconductor materials like indium phosphide (InP), gallium arsenide (GaAs) and gallium nitride (GaN) in a single crystal layer to form a thin film.[26]

It is used for depositing highly uniform arsenide and phosphide ("As/P") films to create amber and red output colors in LEDs.

Emerging applications for MOCVD include mini-LEDs, and micro-LEDS used in LED-backlit displays. It is also expected to enable VCSELs used for facial recognition applications, as well as GaN-based RF and power semiconductor devices.[26]

Systems used for advanced materials research and industrial applications

Veeco MBE systems are used by scientific research organizations and universities as part of materials science discovery.

MBE, wet etch and clean systems are also used to manufacture high power lasers and infrared sensors.

IBD, IBE, PVD, and lapping and dicing tools are used in data storage applications such as hard disk drives. IBD tools deposit thin layers of advanced materials on various substrates to alter how light is reflected and transmitted.[28]

Laser spike annealing systems for precision doping of materials at a controlled temperature

Ion beam etch tools used in spin torque transfer magnetic random access memory ("STT-MRAM") applications. STT-MRAM has many benefits over traditional random access memory such as its non-volatility, speed, endurance and power consumption.[22]

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) tools for semiconductor, solar and medical devices applications. Veeco is one of the key players in the global ALD market.[23]

Lithography tools used for copper pillar, fan-out wafer-level packaging (FOWLP) through-silicon via (TSV) and silicon interposer applications

Wet etch tools for under-bump metallization and redistribution layer applications

Wet-solvent-based surface preparation tools for photoresist and dry film removal, flux cleaning, particle removal and TSV clean applications

Wet etch tools for etching thin films on substrates and sometimes the substrates themselves.[24]

Single-wafer wet clean systems that use a soak-and-spray approach for metal lift-off. This is used in MEMS and compound semiconductor applications. This tool was part of the SSEC acquisition.[25]

MBE and ion beam etch tools used to perform ion beam lithography in the manufacture of electroacoustic filters such as bulk acoustic wave ("BAW") and surface acoustic wave ("SAW") RF filters.

At the Nanolab at Eindhoven University of Technology, a Veeco MBE reactor is used to grow epitaxial layers for GaAs-based materials.[27]

At Tufts University, the Veeco GEN Xplore enables the growth of small bandgap materials. https://engineering.tufts.edu/epitaxycore/capabilities/molecular-beam-epitaxy

type	Public
traded as	nasdaq: VECO S&P 600 component
founded	1945
founders	Frank Raible Al Nerken
location	Plainview, New York, U.S.
key people	Bill Miller (CEO) John Kiernan (CFO)
industry	Manufacturing
revenue	US$583 million (2021)
operating income	US$57 million (2021)
net income	US$26 million (2021)
assets	US$899 million (2021)
equity	US$438 million (2021)
num employees	1,091 (December 2021)
subsid	Ultratech
homepage	www.veeco.com
footnotes	‡R1R‡

History

Finances

Markets

Products

Technology breakthroughs

Facilities

External links

References