Rudolph Technologies, a provider of process characterisation, photolithography equipment and software for the semiconductor, FPD, LED and solar industries, has purchased selected assets, including a strong patent portfolio, relating to metrology capability from Tamar Technology. The addition of Tamar’s advanced metrology technologies to Rudolph’s existing inspection and metrology systems will allow the company to address the emerging need for fast, precise 3D measurement capabilities in the rapidly-growing advanced electronic packaging market sector.
Michael Jost, vice president and general manager of Rudolph’s inspection business unit, said: ‘The purchase of these assets adds new capabilities to our technology portfolio, which addresses an emerging need for 3D measurements to control copper pillar bumping in advanced packaging processes. Tamar’s unique technology is already well known and widely used. Integrating it into our NSX and F30 inspection and metrology platforms adds critical capability and value to an established and reliable tool set. The integration work is essentially complete and we expect to receive initial system orders in the coming months.’
David Grant, Tamar Technology’s president, commented: ‘This agreement with Rudolph integrates our technology into an advanced platform from a trusted supplier that meets our customers’ needs for throughput and process integration in high-volume production.’
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. However, the company noted that the asset purchase agreement includes an earn-out contingency that, if met, would bring the total transaction value to approximately $10 million. The company also noted that it expects the transaction to be accretive to earnings within the first 12 months.
