March 23, 2006 – The top 10 suppliers of semiconductor equipment in 2005 remained largely unchanged with one exception, even though half of the companies in the list saw sales decline during the year, according to figures from VLSI Research Inc.

Applied, TEL, and ASML held their usual places, while KLA-Tencor retook the No. 4 spot from Advantest, which usurped it in 2004. All other companies in the top 10 remained the same. Combined sales of all top 10 companies declined about 6%, a big swing from 2004’s 68% surge but still slightly less than the equipment industry’s 7% decline to $43.3 billion, noted VLSI. Four of the top 10 increased sales, with Nikon the only one to break double-digit growth; Applied saw a double-digit decline in its sales.

Overall wafer-process equipment suppliers took nine of the top 10 positions, accounting for 96% of the group’s overall sales, up half a percent from 2004. Lithography players captured three spots in the list, with combined sales increasing 5% year-on-year to nearly $6 billion.

By region, Japanese suppliers claimed five positions in the top 10, taking an extra point of market share to 43% despite a combined 3% decline in sales. It came at the expense of US suppliers, whose share fell 2% to 44%, continuing a decline of nearly 10 percentage points since 2002. Europe, represented by ASML, increased its share of top 10 sales by one point to 13%.

Top 10 IC equipment suppliers in 2005*

2005 rank Company 2005 sales ($M) vs. 2004 (%)

1 Applied Materials 6234 7552 (-17.4)
2 Tokyo Electron Limited 4455 4742 (-6.1)
3 ASML 3160 3022 (4.6)
4 KLA-Tencor 2005 1892 (6.0)
5 Advantest 1960 2176 (-9.9)
6 Nikon 1566 1411 (11.0)
7 Lam Research 1382 1360 (1.6)
8 Novellus Systems 1302 1337 (-2.6)
9 Hitachi High-Technologies 1277 1315 (-2.9)
10 Canon 1247 1284 (-2.9)
Top 10 — 24,588 26,091 (-5.8)
Total industry — 43,300 46,500 (-6.9)

*Includes revenues from IC & related system sales, service, and support. FPD equipment revenues are not included.