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Chipmakers buy Veeco Instruments’ equipment to deposit, etch, clean and heat materials during chip fabrication and packaging. Customers include manufacturers that design and make their own chips, foundries that manufacture chips for others, and outsourced packaging and testing companies. Semiconductor applications generate most revenue. Veeco also serves compound-semiconductor manufacturers, hard-drive makers and research institutions; its NEXUS systems, for example, deposit thin layers for chipmaking masks and hard-drive heads.
Equipment sales are the main source of revenue, with parts, upgrades and service providing a smaller contribution after systems are sold. Sales depend largely on manufacturers’ spending on production equipment and on Veeco developing systems that meet changing manufacturing requirements. A small group of customers supplies a substantial share of sales, including one unnamed customer that accounts for a significant portion.
Most sales go to customers outside the United States. U.S. export controls require licenses or valid exceptions for some equipment shipments and can prevent delivery or servicing. These restrictions already limit Veeco’s ability to sell and service certain equipment and customers in China.
The risk section is the longest, dullest part of the filing. This keeps only what can really hurt you: where it hits, how hard, when it plays out.
Every company claims an edge. Each one is checked against hard numbers like margins and returns: which hold, and which line gives way first.
Axcelis’s share price directly matters to Veeco holders: the pending merger would exchange each Veeco share for 0.3575 Axcelis shares, with no adjustment for price changes. Axcelis sells tools that implant ions into wafers to chipmakers that also buy Veeco’s process equipment; watch merger approvals and completion news.
Applied Materials competes with Veeco for semiconductor manufacturers’ spending on wafer-processing and advanced-packaging equipment. Its advanced-packaging business is worth watching alongside Veeco’s tools for connecting chips in 2.5D and 3D packages, though the companies do not compete across every product line.
ACM Research competes with Veeco in equipment that cleans and wet-etches wafers for chip manufacturing and advanced packaging. Watch its Advanced Packaging/Wafer Processing customer revenue, which rose from 7% of revenue in 2024 to 14% in 2025, alongside Veeco’s growing packaging wet-processing business.
Onto Innovation competes with Veeco for advanced-packaging manufacturers’ spending on systems that print patterns on wafers. Watch demand for Onto’s wafer and panel lithography systems alongside Veeco’s packaging lithography tools used in copper-pillar and microbump steps.
Lam Research and Veeco compete for spending by logic, foundry and memory manufacturers on tools that deposit layers, etch materials and clean wafers. Lam’s DRAM customer business is particularly relevant as Veeco targets advanced memory customers with its process equipment.
ASML and Veeco participate in advanced-chip investment at different steps: ASML sells chipmakers systems that print patterns using EUV light, while Veeco sells advanced-node annealing tools and equipment that deposits layers on EUV mask blanks. Watch ASML’s EUV adoption among advanced logic and DRAM customers, the customer groups central to Veeco’s growth focus.
KLA and Veeco both benefit when chipmakers invest in more complex manufacturing and better yields: KLA sells equipment to measure and control processes, while Veeco sells tools that perform fabrication steps. KLA’s Semiconductor Process Control business is the relevant one to watch for that shared spending.
MKS and Veeco share exposure to semiconductor and packaging equipment spending, but sell different parts of the manufacturing toolkit: MKS supplies instruments and process-control subsystems, while Veeco sells process systems. Watch MKS’s semiconductor and electronics-and-packaging businesses rather than its specialty-industrial business.
Advanced Energy’s semiconductor-equipment business follows the investment cycle that drives Veeco’s system sales: it sells products that turn facility electricity into precisely controlled power for equipment, while Veeco sells chipmakers fabrication tools. Watch its Semiconductor Equipment revenue rather than its data-center power business.
Ultra Clean’s demand follows the same chip-fabrication equipment investment cycle as Veeco’s sales, but it builds subsystems and process modules for equipment customers rather than selling Veeco’s fabrication systems. Watch its Products business, including gas and fluid delivery systems, for changes in equipment production demand.
Lam Research Corp earningsLRCX
Lam Research’s report will show whether chipmakers are sustaining DRAM equipment spending, a demand signal for Veeco’s systems sold to HBM and advanced DRAM customers.
Read Lam Research’s DRAM business against its other memory business. Strength in DRAM would indicate that shared memory customers are still investing in equipment, supporting the demand backdrop for Veeco’s HBM and advanced DRAM systems. Weakness would suggest those customers may be slowing investment, though Lam sells different tools from Veeco.
Veeco Instruments Inc earningsThis company
Veeco’s report will show whether semiconductor and advanced-packaging equipment sales can offset weakness elsewhere and ease the pressure that sales mix and costs put on margins.
Compare semiconductor sales and advanced-packaging orders or revenue with compound-semiconductor and data-storage sales, then check gross margin. Growth in semiconductor and packaging alongside a firmer margin would show that advanced-node and packaging demand is offsetting declines elsewhere and that mix or cost pressure is easing. Continued weakness in the other markets with a falling margin would show that growth still cannot overcome lower volume, unfavorable mix or costs.
ACM Research, Inc. earningsACMR
ACM Research’s report will show whether advanced-packaging customers keep buying wafer-cleaning and wet-etch tools, a direct read-through for demand in Veeco’s growing packaging wet-processing business.
Compare ACM Research’s Advanced Packaging/Wafer Processing customer revenue with its total revenue. Further growth would show that customers are expanding purchases of cleaning and wet-processing tools, a direct read-through for Veeco’s packaging wet-processing demand. A stall or decline would suggest packaging demand is not translating into sustained equipment buying.
Onto Innovation Inc. earningsONTO
Onto Innovation’s report will show whether advanced-packaging manufacturers keep buying wafer and panel lithography systems, a demand signal for Veeco’s packaging lithography tools.
Compare demand for Onto Innovation’s wafer and panel lithography systems with Veeco’s packaging lithography tools used in copper-pillar and microbump steps. Stronger demand would show advanced-packaging manufacturers are still investing in patterning equipment, supporting the overlapping application; weaker demand would suggest customers are slowing those purchases.
