Nova Measuring Instruments [NASDAQ: NVMI]: Changing the Narrative in Semiconductor Manufacturing

Stepping up the digitalization game, the semiconductor industry has taken the technology world by storm, enabling breakthrough technologies and powering various cutting-edge digital devices. The industry’s growth trajectory holds immense potential in the wake of new technologies like autonomous driving, AI, 5G, IoT, and more. While the shape and dynamic of the semiconductor industry have changed dramatically, driven by headlong growth in demand, for IC manufacturers across the globe, the journey has been arduous. These IC manufacturers operate in a highly challenging and competitive environment, where they need to provide their solutions to the cadence of Moore’s law—enhancing their technologies and bringing solutions with better performance to the market every two years. To keep up the momentum in this rapidly changing landscape, semiconductor manufacturers need to achieve shorter development cycles, faster time-to-market, and higher product yield that collectively contribute to the rapid product launches.

However, that’s easier said than done.

This is precisely where Nova Measuring Instruments is moving the needle. As an international company, Nova specializes in process control solutions for the semiconductor manufacturing industry. Deployed with all the world’s largest integrated-circuit manufacturers, Nova’s novel technologies provide semiconductor manufacturers with the right process insight and clarity required to boost process performance, product yields, and time to market. The company delivers continuous innovation by providing advanced process control metrology solutions that present a unique combination of dimensional metrology (for measuring critical dimensions) and materials metrology (for measuring material properties). In addition, Nova also provides customers with advanced modeling algorithms combining physical modeling with machine learning and big data within both integrated and stand-alone configurations, enabling them to gain deeper insight and faster time to solution, throughout the entire R&D and manufacturing processes.

Nova’s ingenious metrology solutions are based on numerous advanced technologies in various fields of expertise, including Optical Scatterometry, X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray Fluorescence (XRF), scatterometry modeling software and high-performance computing. “We have unique hardware solutions combined with an algorithmic suite which is both physically and mathematically based, using artificial intelligence and machine learning,” states Dr. Shay Wolfling, CTO of Nova. “These solutions are deployed in numerous IC manufacturers, enabling them to develop the process from the early R&D stage all the way to high volume manufacturing”.

“We attain a deep understanding of our customers’ challenges and processes and deploy our solutions accordingly. During the manufacturing process, our solutions enable our customers to see critical parameters that influence the device performance and have high correlation to the yield at the end of the line. As a result, with our advanced process control, manufacturers can better control the process and eventually achieve high yield,” says Zohar Gil, Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer, Nova. Elaborating more on the onboarding process, Gil goes on to mention that Nova’s group of application engineers and technology experts invests significant time in collaboration with its customers, starting from the R&D phase to understand the challenges and develop the required solution.