Novellus Systems, Inc.

Novellus Systems, Inc. was founded in 1984 and is headquartered in San Jose, California. Novellus Systems, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, develops, manufactures, sells, and supports equipment used in the fabrication of integrated circuits. It operates in two segments, Semiconductor Group and Industrial Applications Group. The Semiconductor Group segment manufactures and supplies equipment used in the deposition of thin dielectric and metal films, as well as equipment used in complementary manufacturing steps, including surface preparation and ultraviolet thermal processing. Its deposition systems use chemical vapor deposition (CVD), physical vapor deposition (PVD), and electrochemical deposition (ECD) processes to form transistor, capacitor, and interconnect layers in an integrated circuit. This segment’s High-Density Plasma CVD (HDP-CVD) and Plasma-Enhanced CVD (PECVD) systems employ chemical plasma to deposit dielectric material within the gaps formed by the etching of aluminum, or as a blanket film that can be etched with patterns for depositing conductive materials into the etched dielectric. Its CVD Tungsten systems are used to deposit conductive contacts between transistors and interconnect; PVD systems are used to deposit conductive aluminum and copper metal layers by sputtering metal atoms from the surface of a target source; and Electrofil ECD systems are used to deposit copper to form the conductive wiring on integrated circuits using copper interconnects.