, or TEL, is a Japanese

electronics The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...

and

semiconductor company The semiconductor industry is the aggregate of companies engaged in the design and fabrication of semiconductors and semiconductor devices, such as transistors and integrated circuits. It formed around 1960, once the fabrication of semiconduc ...

headquartered in Akasaka,

Minato-ku, Tokyo is a special ward in Tokyo, Japan. It is also called Minato City in English. It was formed in 1947 as a merger of Akasaka, Azabu and Shiba wards following Tokyo City's transformation into Tokyo Metropolis. The modern Minato ward exhibits th ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. The company was founded as Tokyo Electron Laboratories, Inc. in 1963. TEL is best known as a supplier of equipment to fabricate

integrated circuits An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...

(IC),

flat panel displays A flat-panel display (FPD) is an electronic display device, display used to display visual content such as text or images. It is present in consumer, medical, transportation, and industrial equipment. Flat-panel displays are thin, lightweight, p ...

(FPD), and

photovoltaic cells A solar cell, or photovoltaic cell, is an electronic device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect, which is a physical and chemical phenomenon.

(PV). , or TED, is a subsidiary of TEL specializing in

semiconductor devices A semiconductor device is an electronic component that relies on the electronic properties of a semiconductor material (primarily silicon, germanium, and gallium arsenide, as well as organic semiconductors) for its function. Its conductivity li ...

electronic components An electronic component is any basic discrete device or physical entity in an electronic system used to affect electrons or their associated fields. Electronic components are mostly industrial products, available in a singular form and are not ...

, and networking devices. As of 2011, TEL is the largest manufacturer of IC and FPD production equipment. On September 24, 2013 Tokyo Electron and

Applied Materials Applied Materials, Inc. is an American corporation that supplies equipment, services and software for the manufacture of semiconductor (integrated circuit) chips for electronics, flat panel displays for computers, smartphones, televisions, and s ...

announced a merger, forming a new company to be called Eteris. Eteris would have been the world's largest supplier of semiconductor processing equipment, with a total market value of approximately $29 billion. On 26 April 2015, the merger was cancelled due to antitrust concerns in the United States.

Origins

On November 11, 1963, Tokyo Electron Laboratories Incorporated was founded by Tokuo Kubo and Toshio Kodaka, largely funded by

Tokyo Broadcasting System formerly is a Japanese media and licensed broadcasting holding company. It is the parent company of the television network and radio network . It has a 28-affiliate television network called JNN (Japan News Network), as well as a 34-affili ...

(TBS), with a capital of over five million

yen The is the official currency of Japan. It is the third-most traded currency in the foreign exchange market, after the United States dollar (US$) and the euro. It is also widely used as a third reserve currency after the US dollar and the e ...

. Later that year, their office opened in the TBS main building and began manufacturing thousands of quality-control and importing

diffusion furnace Furnace annealing is a process used in semiconductor device fabrication which consist of heating multiple semiconductor wafers in order to affect their electrical properties. Heat treatments are designed for different effects. Wafers can be heated ...

s made by Thermco and selling Japanese-made car radios. In 1965, the company approached a rapidly growing business in the market,

Fairchild Semiconductor Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc. was an American semiconductor company based in San Jose, California. Founded in 1957 as a division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument, it became a pioneer in the manufacturing of transistors and of int ...

Corporation and agreed to serve as a sales agency for them, increasing their capital to twenty million yen and began exporting IC testers, IC sockets, IC connectors, and other similar computer components. The company opened an office in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

and their new branch, Pan Electron in 1968 established themselves as the only stocking distributor of imported electronic components in the region. One year later, they opened their

Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of To ...

office and established Teltron, a major manufacturer and distributor of car stereos, expanding their headquarters to fill the entire TBS-2 building and raising their capital to 100 million yen.

Products

Semiconductor Production Equipment (SPE)

TEL produces Semiconductor Production Equipment (SPE) for the following purposes: ;Thermal processing :Deposition of thin layers of

dielectric In electromagnetism, a dielectric (or dielectric medium) is an electrical insulator that can be polarised by an applied electric field. When a dielectric material is placed in an electric field, electric charges do not flow through the mate ...

material between

transistors upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink). A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch e ...

onto the

silicon wafer In electronics, a wafer (also called a slice or substrate) is a thin slice of semiconductor, such as a crystalline silicon (c-Si), used for the fabrication of integrated circuits and, in photovoltaics, to manufacture solar cells. The wafer serv ...

surface in a heated low-pressure

chemical vapor deposition Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is a vacuum deposition method used to produce high quality, and high-performance, solid materials. The process is often used in the semiconductor industry to produce thin films. In typical CVD, the wafer (substra ...

(LPCVD) or oxidation process ;Photoresist coating/developing :

Photoresist A photoresist (also known simply as a resist) is a light-sensitive material used in several processes, such as photolithography and photoengraving, to form a patterned coating on a surface. This process is crucial in the electronic industry. T ...

coating and developing to project a microscopic circuitry pattern on the wafer in

photolithography In integrated circuit manufacturing, photolithography or optical lithography is a general term used for techniques that use light to produce minutely patterned thin films of suitable materials over a substrate, such as a silicon wafer, to protect ...

;

Plasma etching Plasma etching is a form of plasma processing used to fabricate integrated circuits. It involves a high-speed stream of glow discharge (plasma) of an appropriate gas mixture being shot (in pulses) at a sample. The plasma source, known as etch speci ...

: ;Wet surface preparation :Wafer surface cleaning to remove foreign particles or contaminants such as dust ;Single wafer

:Deposition of thin layers of various materials, such as

tungsten Tungsten, or wolfram, is a chemical element with the symbol W and atomic number 74. Tungsten is a rare metal found naturally on Earth almost exclusively as compounds with other elements. It was identified as a new element in 1781 and first isolat ...

tungsten silicide Tungsten silicide (WSi2) is an inorganic compound, a silicide of tungsten. It is an electrically conductive ceramic material. Chemistry Tungsten silicide can react violently with substances such as strong acids, fluorine Fluorine is a chemical ...

titanium Titanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. Found in nature only as an oxide, it can be reduced to produce a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength, resistant to corrosion in ...

titanium nitride Titanium nitride (TiN; sometimes known as Tinite) is an extremely hard ceramic material, often used as a physical vapor deposition (PVD) coating on titanium alloys, steel, carbide, and aluminium components to improve the substrate's surface prope ...

, and

tantalum oxide Tantalum pentoxide, also known as tantalum(V) oxide, is the inorganic compound with the formula . It is a white solid that is insoluble in all solvents but is attacked by strong bases and hydrofluoric acid. is an inert material with a high refract ...

;Wafer probing :

Wafer prober A wafer is a crisp, often sweet, very thin, flat, light and dry biscuit, often used to decorate ice cream, and also used as a garnish on some sweet dishes. Wafers can also be made into cookies with cream flavoring sandwiched between them. The ...

s for testing the functionality and performance of each

die Die, as a verb, refers to death, the cessation of life. Die may also refer to: Games * Die, singular of dice, small throwable objects used for producing random numbers Manufacturing * Die (integrated circuit), a rectangular piece of a semicondu ...

on the wafer ;Material modification/doping :Surface modification and doping using

gas cluster ion beam Gas cluster ion beams (GCIB) is a technology for nano-scale modification of surfaces. It can smooth a wide variety of surface material types to within an angstrom of roughness without subsurface damage. It is also used to chemically alter surfaces t ...

(GCIB) technology ;Corrective etching/trimming :Corrective etching and trimming of

thin films A thin film is a layer of material ranging from fractions of a nanometer (monolayer) to several micrometers in thickness. The controlled synthesis of materials as thin films (a process referred to as deposition) is a fundamental step in many ap ...

such as

silicon Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic luster, and is a tetravalent metalloid and semiconductor. It is a member of group 14 in the periodic tab ...

silicon nitride Silicon nitride is a chemical compound of the elements silicon and nitrogen. is the most thermodynamically stable and commercially important of the silicon nitrides, and the term "silicon nitride" commonly refers to this specific composition. It ...

silicon dioxide Silicon dioxide, also known as silica, is an oxide of silicon with the chemical formula , most commonly found in nature as quartz and in various living organisms. In many parts of the world, silica is the major constituent of sand. Silica is one ...

aluminum nitride Aluminium nitride ( Al N) is a solid nitride of aluminium. It has a high thermal conductivity of up to 321 W/(m·K) and is an electrical insulator. Its wurtzite phase (w-AlN) has a band gap of ~6 eV at room temperature and has a potenti ...

, and metals ;Integrated

metrology Metrology is the scientific study of measurement. It establishes a common understanding of units, crucial in linking human activities. Modern metrology has its roots in the French Revolution's political motivation to standardise units in Fran ...

(co-developed by TEL and

KLA Tencor KLA Corporation is an American capital equipment company based in Milpitas, California. It supplies process control and yield management systems for the semiconductor industry and other related nanoelectronics industries. The company's product ...

) ;Advanced Packaging

Group companies

Tokyo Electron Europe HQ, Manor Royal, Crawley

The Tokyo Electron Group consists of TEL and the following subsidiaries: * TEL Epion Inc. * TEL FSI, Inc. *

TEL Solar TEL Solar, formerly Oerlikon Solar, is a manufacturer of production equipment for the manufacturing of thin-film silicon cells, headquartered in Trübbach, Switzerland, near the border to Liechtenstein. The Japanese electronics and semiconductor ...

* TEL Technology Center, America, LLC * TEL Venture Capital, Inc. * Tokyo Electron Device Limited * Tokyo Electron Yamanashi Limited * Tokyo Electron Tohoku Limited * Tokyo Electron Kyushu Limited * Tokyo Electron Miyagi Limited * Tokyo Electron Technology Development Institute, Inc. * Tokyo Electron Software Technologies Limited * Tokyo Electron FE Limited * Tokyo Electron BP Limited * Tokyo Electron PV Limited * Tokyo Electron TS Limited * Tokyo Electron Agency Limited * Tokyo Electron U.S. Holdings, Inc. * Tokyo Electron America, Inc. * Tokyo Electron Europe Limited — Head Office (

Crawley Crawley () is a large town and borough in West Sussex, England. It is south of London, north of Brighton and Hove, and north-east of the county town of Chichester. Crawley covers an area of and had a population of 106,597 at the time of th ...

, England) *: German Branch *: Italian Branch *: Netherlands Branch *: Irish Branch *: French Branch * Tokyo Electron Israel Limited * Tokyo Electron Korea Limited * Tokyo Electron Korea Solution Limited * Tokyo Electron Taiwan Limited * Tokyo Electron (Shanghai) Limited * Tokyo Electron (Shanghai) Logistic Center Limited * Tokyo Electron (Kunshan) Limited * Timbre Technologies, Inc.

Research and development

TEL's Leading-edge Process Development Center is located in

Nirasaki, Yamanashi is a city in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 29,483 in 12662 households, and a population density of 210 persons per km². The total area is . Geography Nirasaki is located in the northwestern end of the K ...

. TEL also has the

Kansai The or the , lies in the southern-central region of Japan's main island Honshu, Honshū. The region includes the Prefectures of Japan, prefectures of Nara Prefecture, Nara, Wakayama Prefecture, Wakayama, Kyoto Prefecture, Kyoto, Osaka Prefectur ...

Technology Center in

Amagasaki file:Amagasaki Castle Tenshu 20181125.jpg, 270px, Amagasaki Castle file:Amagasaki city center area Aerial photograph.1985.jpg, 270px, Aerial view of Amagasaki city center file:Amagasaki st03s3000.jpg, 270px, Amagasaki Station is an industrial Citi ...

, Hyogo Prefecture and the Sendai Design and Development Center in

Sendai is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Miyagi Prefecture, the largest city in the Tōhoku region. , the city had a population of 1,091,407 in 525,828 households, and is one of Japan's 20 Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, desig ...

Miyagi Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. Miyagi Prefecture has a population of 2,305,596 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of . Miyagi Prefecture borders Iwate Prefecture to the north, Akita Prefecture to the nort ...

. TEL Technology Center, America, LLC in

Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of New York, also the seat and largest city of Albany County. Albany is on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River, and about north of New York City ...

is the R&D center in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. TEL is one of the partners of

IMEC Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC) is an international research & development organization, active in the fields of nanoelectronics and digital technologies, with headquarters in Belgium. Luc Van den hove has served as President and ...

, a

microelectronics Microelectronics is a subfield of electronics. As the name suggests, microelectronics relates to the study and manufacture (or microfabrication) of very small electronic designs and components. Usually, but not always, this means micrometre-sc ...

and

nanoelectronics Nanoelectronics refers to the use of nanotechnology in electronic components. The term covers a diverse set of devices and materials, with the common characteristic that they are so small that inter-atomic interactions and quantum mechanical pr ...

research center in

Leuven, Belgium Leuven (, ) or Louvain (, , ; german: link=no, Löwen ) is the capital and largest city of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located about east of Brussels. The municipality itself comprises the historic c ...

. In July 2014, TEL announced the establishment of joint assembly lab with Institute of Microelectronics in Singapore. The lab is focused on the research and development of Wafer Level Packaging and assembly, to address the need of

Internet of Things The Internet of things (IoT) describes physical objects (or groups of such objects) with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other comm ...

with devices of high performance and low power consumption.

Sponsorships

Miyagi Prefectural Auditorium viewed from a greenway in Jozenji-dori avenue

TEL supports

association football in Japan Association football, Football is among the most popular sports in Japan, together with baseball, basketball, sumo and martial arts. Its nationwide organization, the Japan Football Association, administers the professional football leagues, incl ...

by sponsoring the

J. League The , officially is Japan's professional football league including the first division J1 League, second division J2 League and third division J3 League of the Japanese association football league system. J1 League is one of the most succe ...

as a whole and the football club

Ventforet Kofu is a Japanese football club from Kōfu in Yamanashi Prefecture. The team currently competes in the J2 League and play their home games in JIT Recycle Ink Stadium, located in Kōfu. The word "Ventforet" is a compound formed from two French roo ...

based in Kofu and Nirasaki as well as the rest of

Yamanashi Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Yamanashi Prefecture has a population of 817,192 (1 January 2019) and has a geographic area of 4,465 km2 (1,724 sq mi). Yamanashi Prefecture borders Saitama Prefecture to the no ...

. The company has acquired

naming rights Naming rights are a financial transaction and form of advertising or memorialization whereby a corporation, person, or other entity purchases the right to name a facility, object, location, program, or event, typically for a defined period of t ...

of two multipurpose halls: * owned by Nirasaki City * owned by Miyagi Prefecture (currently closed due to the heavy earthquake damage)

References

External links

*
Brief Description From Yahoo Businesses

Bloomberg Stats
{{Authority control Companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Equipment semiconductor companies Electronics companies of Japan Defense companies of Japan Tokyo Broadcasting System Engineering companies based in Tokyo Manufacturing companies based in Tokyo Japanese brands 1963 establishments in Japan Japanese companies established in 1963