Ricmar Group Buys Majority Stake in NanoPhotonics

The Ricmar Group (Kramsach, Austria) said it has purchased a majority of NanoPhotonics AG (Mainz, Germany). Ricmar CEO Gerhard Zeindl said the plan is to integrate the NanoPhotonics defect inspection metrology tools into Ricmar's wafer handling platform.

Staff -- Semiconductor International, 10/1/2008 8:45:00 AM

Ricmar Beteiligungs GmbH (Kramsach, Austria) has purchased a majority stake in NanoPhotonics AG (Mainz, Germany), which makes defect inspection tools, from ASM International NV (Bilthoven, Netherlands)

Gerhard Zeindl, CEO, Ricmar Group (left), and Michael Abraham, president, NanoPhotonics AG.

The Ricmar group’s products include automation, wafer handling, metrology, vacuum coating and dispensing. NanoPhotonics was founded in 1997 to create modular wafer defect inspection tools for process development, tool classification, R&D and yield improvement.

“With NanoPhotonics, we are able to increase customer value by integrating defect inspection metrology into the wafer handling platform of Ricmar,” said Gerhard Zeindl, CEO of the Ricmar Group.

Michael Abraham, founder and president of NanoPhotonics, said the combination of NanoPhotonics’ modular defect inspection product line for wafer front-side, edge and back-side defect inspection with Ricmar’s wafer handling solutions “allows us to offer a wide range of automated defect inspection solutions for different market segments of the semiconductor industry.”