Partnership to Deliver New Semiconductor Lab Resources in Silicon Valley

Rigaku Corporation, a global leader in X-ray analytical instrumentation, has announced a new partnership with Covalent Metrology, a leading provider of analytical services to advanced materials innovation companies.

In a joint declaration, Covalent and Rigaku reveal a first-of-its-kind collaboration agreement demonstrating a mutual commitment to support American high-tech industries with the most advanced metrology capabilities in the world.

Under the terms of this agreement, Rigaku, “The world’s leading supplier of X-ray metrology technology,” will be supplying Covalent with several state-of-the-art instruments for their new facility in Sunnyvale, California. This collaboration agreement provides Covalent with exceptional analytical service capabilities and Rigaku a North American demonstration facility located in the heart of Silicon Valley.

“This partnership will significantly expand Covalent’s product offering. Rigaku is a proven leader in this field and has earned its outstanding reputation over many decades of technology innovation. Working together, our respective customers will benefit from being able to access the most advanced technology, staffed by world-class experts and delivered with unprecedented customer service," said Craig Hunter, Covalent's Founder and CEO.

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The Rigaku Semiconductor Metrology Division designs and manufactures X-ray based measurement tools to solve semiconductor manufacturing challenges. With over 35 years of global market leadership in the semiconductor industry, Rigaku metrology tools employ X-ray fluorescence (XRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray reflectometry (XRR) and Critical-Dimension Small-Angle X-ray Scattering (CD-SAXS) techniques, enabling everything from in-fab process control metrology to R&D for thin film and materials characterization.

Products include in-line, high-throughput X-ray monitoring tools for measuring critical process parameters such as film thickness, density and roughness, XRF spectrometers for thickness and composition determination, and total-reflection XRF spectrometers (TXRF) with integrated vapor phase decomposition (VPD) for trace contamination monitoring.

“We believe deeply in the power of American ingenuity, and we are focusing our investments in areas where we can have a direct impact on innovation. Rigaku is committed to advancing cutting-edge technologies that deliver solutions for yield enhancement and process development,” said Kiyoshi Ogata, Rigaku Senior Vice President. “Covalent Metrology’s experienced leadership, top-notch technical team and business model innovations altogether make them the ideal partner for our Silicon Valley Semiconductor Lab. We are proud to be a part of this collaboration and look forward to enabling new customer designs."

Covalent Metrology provides imaging and characterization services to support R&D, defect analysis, and quality control for companies in semiconductors, solar, medical devices, MEMS and other industries. Covalent’s analytical services include atomic force microscopy (AFM), X-ray XRD/XRR, high-resolution X-ray diffraction (HR-XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), spectral ellipsometry, optical profilometry, UV-VIS-NIR spectrophotometry, TEM, XPS, TOF-SIMS and many others.