SANTA CLARA, USA: VLSI Research Inc., a leading public source for customer feedback on semiconductor equipment, has announced the winners of the 2008 10 BEST Awards.

This year’s top winners in Process Diagnostics Equipment, Small Suppliers of Wafer Processing Equipment, and Large Suppliers of Wafer Processing Equipment were Keithley Instruments, SEN Corp., and Varian Semiconductor.

The results are based on 4,565 surveys collected from chip makers that represent more than 95 percent of worldwide chip production. Each equipment supplier was rated on 13 different categories which encompass both equipment performance as well as customer service. Listed below are the 10 BEST winners.

Process Diagnostics Equipment Suppliers
Within Process Diagnostics Equipment Suppliers, perennial 10 BEST contenders Keithley Instruments and Agilent Technologies were first and second, respectively. Keithley, ahead of Agilent almost a full point, received the highest rating in 11 of the 13 categories, with its best rating in equipment uptime.

Hamamatsu Photonics, the third-place contender, achieved the best scores in usable throughput and quality of results. Hitachi High-Technologies and FEI Company rounded out the top five.

The forte of process diagnostics equipment suppliers appears to be equipment performance, as each 10 BEST contender received their highest score either in equipment uptime, usable throughput, or quality of results.

The most improved category was usable throughput, increasing by an average of 0.42 points from last year. Customers filling out the surveys were most critical of cost of ownership, software, and process support.

The lower average ratings in the customer service categories indicate room for improvement for these suppliers.

Small Suppliers of Wafer Processing Equipment
SEN Corp., the customer satisfaction winner in the Small Suppliers of Wafer Processing Equipment segment, won the highest rating in five categories, with its best scores coming from spares support and technical leadership.

In a very tight competition where the number one and the number 10 companies were only separated by 1.18 points, SEN Corp. was a distant 0.51 points ahead of the next competitor. Second place Rite Track achieved the best scores in field engineering and support after sales.

The highest ratings in quality of results and product performance were achieved by fourth place Aixtron AG. SUSS Microtec scored the highest for build quality. Brooks Automation won the best results in the process support category, while Mattson Technology scored the best rating for cost of ownership and equipment uptime.

The strongest category for this market segment was equipment uptime, with an average rating of 7.94, followed by quality of results, product performance, and throughput.

The lowest rated categories were software, spares support, and support after sales. Once again, customer service categories fell into the lower end of the scoring spectrum, receiving an average of 0.5 points less than equipment performance categories.

Large Suppliers of Wafer Processing Equipment
Varian Semiconductor has captured the top spot among Large Suppliers of Wafer Processing equipment for the fourth year in a row. The company earned the highest rating in eleven of the thirteen categories, with its best score in quality of results.

Novellus ranked second overall and received the highest score in cost of ownership. The best rating in technical leadership went to ASML, which was third overall. Tokyo Electron and Ulvac were fourth and fifth, respectively.

As in the case of small suppliers, customers of Large Suppliers of Wafer Processing Equipment were most satisfied with equipment uptime, giving it an average rating of 7.72. They were most critical of cost of ownership, rating suppliers with an average score of 6.53. Additionally, software continues to be one of the lowest rated categories in VLSI’s survey year after year.

Large wafer processing suppliers were outperformed by small suppliers in the survey in most categories. However, large suppliers did achieve better average scores in four customer service categories: field engineering, spares support, support after sales, and commitment.

All four of these categories received higher average ratings than last year, with spares support improving by the relatively high margin of 0.30 points.

The Large Suppliers of Wafer Processing Equipment 10 BEST competition is comprised of the 15 largest companies in terms of their sales of wafer processing tools only.

These 15 companies are ranked against each other for a 10 BEST placement based on survey responses from their customers. The Small Suppliers of Wafer Processing Equipment market segment is comprised of manufacturers that are smaller than the largest fifteen in wafer processing sales.

This is the first announcement by VLSI Research in a series of three press releases listing the 10 BEST companies in each competitive segment. The next release will announce the 10 BEST suppliers in Test, Material Handling, and Assembly Equipment.