VLSI Research gets more mileage out of its annual customer satisfaction survey than Grandpa squeezed out of his old gas-guzzler, with pieces of the report---and awards based on it---seeping out since the industry research group first announced the results several months back.
The latest iteration trumpets the selection of those equipment suppliers (14 this time) that garnered a five-star rating after the data were normalized, which means, in the words of VLSI, that they achieved "exceptional customer satisfaction across measured categories, including cost of ownership, quality of results, product performance, customer service, technical leadership, and commitment."
As with VLSI winners present and past, the list is notable for those companies that didn't make the cut as much as for those that did. Of the 14 five-star firms, only ASML, Advantest, and Varian also show up among VLSI's Top 15 equipment suppliers (by revenues) released earlier this year. Appearing less than fully stellar are Applied Materials, TEL, KLA-Tencor, Lam, Nikon, Novellus, Dainippon Screen, and Canon, among others. In fact, Applied, KLA-Tencor, Lam, Nikon, and Canon didn't earn five stars in a single category, while TEL, Novellus, and DNS just missed joining the five-star finalist fold. The three companies that made both lists have hit the star-cluster jackpot for three consecutive years, so kudos to them for consistency.
The test and assembly contingent dominates the Group of 14, grabbing nine of the slots, with pure-play wafer fab process toolmakers only accounting for four slots (although one starry-eyed company, PVA TePla, straddles three categories). The only pure-play process diagnostics company to be recognized is Carl Zeiss SMT, which makes me suspect that the inspection/metrology/APC companies still don't get as much respect as some think they deserve---or that their tools don't perform as well as their customers would like.
Buried in the last paragraph of the press release, which explains how the aforementioned normalization of the data was done to select the winners, is a curious quasi-disclaimer: "Please note that high ratings do not mean that every customer has had a positive experience with a particular company. High ratings simply indicate that, on average, the supplier stands out when compared with other companies in the industry."
Considering that I've heard many first-hand anecdotes from fab engineers who have disparaged (to put it mildly) the cost of ownership, quality of results, product performance, customer service, and commitment of several equipment companies sporting five-star VLSI ratings, it makes me wonder about that bothersome basis of comparison.
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