Media Coverage and Awards
Interview: A Standalone Startup is Possible in Metrology
Laura Peters, Lead Technical Editor – Semiconductor International, 7/12/2007
Dave Ring, CEO of ReVera, discusses positioning of a startup company in the semiconductor manufacturing business.
Dave Ring, CEOReVera Inc. is a startup company established in 2004 as a management-led spin-out from Physical Electronics and its wholly owned subsidiary, Charles Evans and Associates. The company now offers X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) systems for compositional metrology. When asked by Lead Technical Editor Laura Peters about consolidation in the market, CEO Dave Ring said, “We are well aware of the consolidation activities in the marketplace and the opportunities that present themselves, but we have not developed the company, nor do we have a view that after a certain amount of time we’re going to be acquired or merge with somebody else. We’ve always felt that if we develop a core capability and technology that’s used by our customers that provides value, and our installed base seems to indicate this, if we really stick to satisfying the emerging needs that our customers have, then we’ll be able to develop a standalone business.
Interview Transcript:
Peters: Hi, this is Laura Peters, Lead Technical Editor with Semiconductor International magazine. Today, I’m speaking with Dave Ring. Dave is the CEO of ReVera Inc. in Santa Clara. Hi, Dave.
ReVera: Hi, Laura. How are you?
Peters: Just fine. Can you talk a little bit about the technology that ReVera uses, and how it compares to other metrology tools?
ReVera: Sure. This is the question we commonly get. The best way to look at it — there’s really two major types of compositional metrology used today: a direct method or a correlated method. Our technology is a direct method, and we measure the composition of the variable of interest. For example, if you look at one of our key applications, SiON gate, what’s of interest to our customers is the amount of nitrogen in that film, and the nitrogen is critical to device performance. By using XPS, we can directly measure the amount of nitrogen with a high degree of certainty. And that directly relates to the sensitivity, in terms of understanding the variation of the nitrogen in that film. That relates to device performance. On the other hand, there is correlation, which is not what we use. That’s more of a traditional technique, and this measures the quantity of something by correlating it to another variable. And usually it’s the variable of interest. Sometimes correlation is strong, but many times it’s weak, and if it’s weak, then the sensitivity goes down. So you really can’t necessarily project or predict the performance, or the amount of a particular element in a device. Correlation is used because it allows you to extend an existing metrology capability, but the trade-off is you lose sensitivity because you are not directly measuring the element of interest. So if you look at our business at ReVera, the ability to directly measure composition is the way we differentiate ourselves, and that’s the basis upon which this business is built. What we’re finding is some customers will still use a combination of older techniques; they will use those in conjunction with newer, emerging capabilities such as ours. We have other customers that have made the full transition from more traditional techniques to state-of-the-art techniques that directly measure composition. That’s who we’re dealing with.
Peters: Let’s talk a little about consolidation in the equipment industry. We’re seeing a lot of that, and how does this affect a startup company like yours?
ReVera: That’s an interesting question, and I was involved in a major consolidation 8-9 years ago, so our view on this is that consolidation will continue to occur in the industry and it has been occurring for some time. I think if you’re in the process equipment business, it’s probably more challenging to start a company and get to a standalone state, given the amount of money required to get to that level. But with respect to a metrology company, the path isn’t quite as challenging. Our view is that we have a desire to be a standalone metrology company, we are well aware of the consolidation activities in the marketplace and the opportunities that present themselves, but we have not developed the company, nor do we have a view that after a certain amount of time we’re going to be acquired or merge with somebody else. We’ve always felt that if we develop a core capability and technology that’s used by our customers that provides value, and our installed base seems to indicate this, if we really stick to satisfying the emerging needs that our customers have, then we’ll be able to develop a standalone business. We’ve got great investors that have a very long-term perspective. So the consolidation exists. It’s there, we’re aware, we are cognizant of it, but again, our focus is on developing a standalone business.
Peters: How many employees do you have?
ReVera: We have 40-45, but we do deploy a fully outsourced model. All of our manufacturing is outsourced, a significant portion of our service and support is outsourced, overseas. We use a number of companies that have already developed that capability.
Peters: Thank you very much for talking with me today, Dave. I appreciate your time.
ReVera: Thank you, Laura.
An audio archive of this interview is available on Semiconductor.net.