Rudolph announces intellectual property and asset purchase from RVSI Inspection
-- Test & Measurement World, 1/23/2008 7:21:00 AM
Rudolph Technologies, a provider of process characterization equipment and software used in wafer processing and semiconductor final manufacturing (back-end) facilities, announced that it has acquired all intellectual property and selected assets from privately-held RVSI Inspection, headquartered in Hauppauge, NY. Rudolph said the addition of RVSI’s industry-standard WS-3800 3D bumped wafer inspection system to its product portfolio is expected to strengthen Rudolph’s established presence in the high-growth, advanced packaging market.
“We are pleased to announce the close of this transaction,” said Paul F. McLaughlin, chairman and CEO of Rudolph. “This purchase, as well as our recently-announced acquisition of Applied Precision’s probe-card test and analysis business, was orchestrated to enhance our position as a dominant supplier of inspection and metrology solutions for an increasing number of back-end applications.”
“The RVSI WS-3800 tool is the perfect complement to the Rudolph NSX 2D macro defect inspection system, which is the workhorse tool-of-choice deployed in most of the leading fabs around the world,” McLaughlin continued. “We believe these high-performance systems will give our customers a comprehensive solution for both 2D and 3D inspection.”
“We will be adding an excellent technical team to our Rudolph organization, and expect to quickly and efficiently fold the RVSI operations into our existing inspection business,” said Nathan Little, executive VP and GM of the Inspection Business Unit. “With a high level of customer overlap, combined with our existing global applications and service support network, our goal is to make this transition as seamless as possible.”
“We’re excited about joining the Rudolph team,” said Reza Asgari, VP of sales at RVSI, who will be joining Rudolph following the acquisition. “We’re looking forward to leveraging the know-how of our engineering teams to continue delivering advanced 2D/3D bumped wafer inspection capability that our customers demand.”
The WS-Series wafer inspection system is used by many back-end manufacturers, with the highest volume found in bump applications. It performs 3D bump height and coplanarity measurements. Using proprietary MicroMap 3D laser-based triangulation, the system is designed to achieve required inspection speeds without compromising defect detection.
Rudolph reported that consumer demand for thinner and multi-function devices is driving the market for advanced packaging. As scaling by device shrink becomes more difficult and expensive, advanced packaging enables increased package density. According to TechSearch International, demand for solder bumped wafers, as measured by 200-mm wafer equivalents, is projected to grow at a CAGR of 27% from 2007 to 2010.
Rudolph will maintain a technology center for the wafer scanner products in Hauppauge, NY, but will relocate the associated manufacturing activities to its Inspection Business Unit in Bloomington, MN.
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Rudolph will provide more information on this acquisition in its next earnings call scheduled for Thursday, February 7, 2008.
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