How ASMI became the key supplier of semicon ALD equipment

On 22 January 1999, a single visit radically overturned ASM International’s future. On that date, ASMI chief technology officer Ernst Granneman received two visitors from Finland: Kari Lampinen and Matti Ervasti. The former was a manager for mergers and acquisitions at a Finnish energy company called Fortum. The latter was a manager of a small subsidiary called Microchemistry, located in Espoo, Finland. Both men visited Bilthoven in order to find out whether ASMI was interested in acquiring Microchemistry and its technology.

Their pitch was about atomic layer deposition (ALD), a process developed by the founder of Microchemistry. ALD entails the controlled deposition of films in layers of single atoms. The process enabled the formation of the thinnest films with unprecedented conformity and step coverage while offering low contamination of unwanted impurities. Through the prevalence of Moore’s Law, technologies enabling the construction of materials at the smallest dimensions – atoms in this case – enjoyed the particular interest of the chip industry. It was just a matter of time before ALD would become indispensable for further miniaturization.