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Lasertec Corporation
Lasertec makes the machines that inspect semiconductor wafers and photomasks for defects, plus laser microscopes used in research.
Lasertec is a Japanese company that builds the inspection equipment chipmakers use to check their work. Its most important product is a machine that inspects the photomasks — the glass plates that serve as master templates for chip patterns — for tiny defects. It also sells wafer inspection systems and laser microscopes for research labs.
The company's crown jewel is its EUV photomask inspection tool. EUV lithography is the most advanced way to print chips, and defects on an EUV mask can ruin wafers worth millions. Lasertec is essentially the only company that makes a machine capable of inspecting these masks without damaging them, which gives it enormous pricing power. Its customers are the world's biggest chipmakers, including TSMC, Samsung, and Intel, plus the companies that make masks for them. That near-monopoly has paid off spectacularly. Revenue and profit have grown at a blistering pace as chipmakers poured money into EUV capacity, and the company's profit margins are among the highest in the equipment industry. It is headquartered in Yokohama, near Tokyo, and its stock trades on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
The obvious risk is customer concentration: a handful of chipmakers and mask makers drive most of the business, and when they cut capital spending, Lasertec feels it immediately. Its shares have been one of Japan's great stock stories of the past decade, but they are also notoriously volatile because the market treats Lasertec as a pure bet on the next wave of chip investment.
Saved answer · last researched 12 Nov 2026