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Native name | 東京エレクトロン株式会社 |
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Romanized name | Tōkyō Erekutoron kabushiki gaisha |
| Formerly | Tokyo Electron Laboratories, Inc. (1963–1978) |
| Company type | Public |
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| Industry | Electronics Semiconductors |
| Predecessor | Sakura Yoko KK founded on April 6, 1951 |
| Founded | November 11, 1963; 62 years ago (1963-11-11) (as Tokyo Electron Laboratories, Inc.) |
| Founder | Tokuo Kub, Toshio Kodaka,Tokyo Broadcasting System, Inc. |
| Headquarters | , Japan |
Area served | Japan, Taiwan, North America, South Korea, Europe, Southeast Asia, China |
Key people | Yoshikazu Nunokawa (chairman), Toshiki Kawai (president & CEO)[1] |
| Products | Networking devices,electronic components, production equipment forintegrated circuits,flat panel displays andphotovoltaic cells |
| Revenue |  ¥1.13 trillion (2020)[2] |
| ¥237.29 billion (2020) | |
| ¥185.21 billion (2020) | |
| Total assets |  ¥1.28 trillion (2020) |
| Total equity | ¥829.69 billion (2020) |
Number of employees | 12,742 (2020)[2] |
| Parent | TBS Holdings, Inc. (4.67%) |
| Subsidiaries | 26Group companies, including Tokyo Electron Device (TYO:2760) |
| Website | tel.com |
| Footnotes / references [3][4][5][6] | |
Tokyo Electron Limited (Japanese:東京エレクトロン株式会社,Hepburn:Tokyo Erekutoron Kabushiki-gaisha), orTEL, is a Japaneseelectronics andsemiconductor company headquartered inAkasaka,Minato-ku, Tokyo,Japan.[4] The company was founded as Tokyo Electron Laboratories, Inc. in 1963.[7] TEL is best known as a supplier of equipment tofabricateintegrated circuits (IC),flat panel displays (FPD), andphotovoltaic cells (PV).[4]Tokyo Electron Device (東京エレクトロンデバイス株式会社,Tokyo Erekutoron Debaisu Kabushiki-gaisha;TYO:2760), orTED, is a subsidiary of TEL specializing insemiconductor devices,electronic components, andnetworking devices.[4] As of 2011, TEL was the largest manufacturer of IC and FPD production equipment.[4] Listed on theNikkei 225,[8] in 2024, Tokyo Electron had a market cap of US$114.6 billion, making it the third-most valuable company in Japan in terms of market cap, and the 12th ranked semiconductor-related company worldwide.[9]
On 11 November 1963 Tokyo Electron Laboratories Incorporated was founded by Tokuo Kubo and Toshio Kodaka, largely funded byTokyo Broadcasting System (TBS), with a capital of over five millionyen. Later that year, their office opened in the TBS main building and began manufacturing thousands of quality-control and importingdiffusion furnaces made by Thermco and selling Japanese-made car radios.[7]
In 1965 the company approached a rapidly growing business in the market,Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation, and agreed to serve as a sales agency for them, increasing their capital to twenty million yen. Tokyo Electron began exporting IC testers,IC sockets, IC connectors, and other similar computer components.[7]
The company opened an office inSan Francisco, California and their new branch, Pan Electron, in 1968, establishing themselves as the only stocking distributor of imported electronic components in the region.[7] One year later, they opened theirYokohama office and establishedTeltron, 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.[7]
The American electronics companyGenrad Inc. and Tokyo Electron Ltd. in 1981 formed a joint venture manufacturing unit, Tel-Genrad Ltd., to make in-circuit board test systems in Japan.[10] Tokyo Electron in 1986 was described by theNew York Times as a maker of semiconductor manufacturing equipment.[11]
In 1990, Tokyo Electron was competing with the Japanese companyDai Nippon Screen and the American company Silicon Valley Group as the largest producer of equipment to make semiconductors.[12] In 1991, Tokyo Electron was one of five Japanese companies criticized by theSEMATECH consortium for allegedly withholding new technology from the United States, specifically "precision heating equipment" made by Tokyo Electron Ltd. andKokusai.[13] By the early 1990s, Tokyo Electron's American rivalApplied Materials was losing market share, and "sought U.S. government help in the form of an import quota" to the American market.[14] In May 1995, Tokyo Electron Ltd. was Japan's largest vendor of equipment to make semiconductors.[15]
After import controls, Applied Materials by 2001 was double the size of Tokyo Electron, which was its next nearest competitor.[14] In 2001, TEL acquired Timbre Technologies Inc. inFremont, California, which developed measurement software technology.[16] In 2004, TEL announced improvements to its plasma etch chamber products.[17] In 2005, Tokyo Electron was still the second-largest maker of chip manufacturing gear after Applied Materials, and aboveASML.[18] In 2006, Tokyo Electron had a research center at theAlbany NanoTech complex, ananotechnology center in New York.[19] The company started a venture capital unit in 2006, TEL Venture Capital, based in California.[20]
As of 2011, TEL was the largest manufacturer of IC and FPD production equipment.[4] On September 24, 2013, Tokyo Electron andApplied Materials announced a merger,[21] forming a new company to be called Eteris.[22][23] 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 $10 billion merger was cancelled due to antitrust concerns in the United States.[24]
In June 2023, Tokyo Electron was ranked among the ForbesGlobal 2000 list of the world's largest companies,[25] at which point it had around 12,742 employees.[2] In late 2023, it was the largest semiconductor equipment maker in Asia. It was generating 43 percent of its revenue from China.[26] In October 2023,[27] the company announced it had developed new technology to improve advanced3D NAND flash memory,[9] making it the only competitor toLam Research.[27]
In early 2024 the company said it would raise its employees' starting salaries by 40% to secure talent and compete with the payrates of foreign companies.[28] In February 2024, Tokyo Electron's market cap closed at US$114.6 billion, making it the third-most valuable company in Japan in terms of market cap, beatingSony Group. It also become the 12th ranked among semiconductor-related companies worldwide in terms of market cap.[9] It continues to be listed on theNikkei 225.[8] In 2024, Toshiki Kawai was president and CEO, while Yoshikazu Nunokawa was chairman of the board.[29]
Supplying equipment tofabricateintegrated circuits (IC),flat panel displays (FPD), andphotovoltaic cells (PV),[4] according toBarron's in 2024, Tokyo Electron Ltd. is engaged in the "development, manufacture, and sale of semiconductor production equipment and industrial electronics products for flat panel display manufacturing equipment." It has three segments: Semiconductor Production Equipment (SPE), Flat Panel Display (FPD) Production Equipment and Others. Others includes logistics, facilities management, and insurance.[30] In 2023, it was reported that the company's FPD business had become "minor" in its earnings, while its SPE segment was steadily growing.[31] TEL's SPE segment develops and sells SPE such as coaters/developers,plasma etch systems, thermal processing systems, single wafer deposition systems, cleaning systems, andwafer probers. The FPD segment focuses on SPE for flat panel displays.[30] In 2024, services listed by the company included field solutions, engineering services, repairs and spare parts, upgrades and modifications, and overhauling used products.[32]
In 2012, TEL produced SPE for multiple purposes.[4] Among those purposes was thermal processing, involving the deposition of thin layers ofdielectric material betweentransistors onto thesilicon wafer surface, using a heated low-pressurechemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) or oxidation process.[33] Also in 2012, products involvedphotoresist coating and developing to project a microscopic circuitry pattern on the wafer inphotolithography.[34] There was also plasma etching,[35] and products focused on wet surface preparation, using cleaning to remove contaminants such as dust.[36] Other product areas in 2012 included single waferchemical vapor deposition, involving the deposition of thin layers of various materials, such astungsten,tungsten silicide,titanium,titanium nitride, andtantalum oxide.[37] TEL's wafer probers tested the functionality and performance of eachdie on the wafer,[38] while other products allowed corrective etching and trimming ofthin films such assilicon,silicon nitride,silicon dioxide,aluminum nitride, and metals.[39] It also sold integratedmetrology (co-developed by TEL andKLA Tencor) in 2012,[40] and products for material and surface modification anddoping usinggas cluster ion beam (GCIB) technology.[41] In 2016, it was involved in selling Advanced Packaging.[42]
The Tokyo Electron Group consists of TEL and the following subsidiaries:[3][43]
TEL's Leading-edge Process Development Center is located inNirasaki, Yamanashi. TEL also has theKansai Technology Center inAmagasaki,Hyogo Prefecture and the Sendai Design and Development Center inSendai,Miyagi Prefecture. TEL Technology Center, America, LLC inAlbany, New York is the R&D center in theUnited States. TEL is one of the partners ofIMEC, amicroelectronics andnanoelectronics research center inLeuven, Belgium.[3]
In July 2014 TEL announced the establishment of joint assembly lab with the Institute of Microelectronics in Singapore. The lab is focused on the research and development of Wafer Level Packaging and assembly, to address the need ofInternet of Things with devices of high performance and low power consumption.[44]
In 2023 it was selling its US headquarters in SoutheastAustin, Texas, under CEO Toshiki Kawai.[45] In 2024, it leased a new American headquarters in Austin.[46] In 2025, Tokyo Electron Technology Solutions, the company's manufacturing subsidiary, is expected to build a $170 million chip equipment plant inOshu, Japan.[47]
TEL supportsassociation football in Japan by sponsoring theJ. League as a whole and the football clubVentforet Kofu based inKofu and Nirasaki as well as the rest ofYamanashi Prefecture.
The company has acquirednaming rights of two multipurpose halls:
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