Ultra Clean Holdings, Inc. (‘UCT’) develops and supplies critical subsystems, components, parts, and ultra-high purity cleaning and analytical services primarily for the semiconductor industry.
UCT offers its customers an integrated outsourced solution for major subassemblies, improved design-to-delivery cycle times, design for manufacturability, prototyping, and part and component manufacturing, as well as tool chamber parts cleaning and coating, and micro-contamination analytical services.
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Ultra Clean Holdings, Inc. (‘UCT’) develops and supplies critical subsystems, components, parts, and ultra-high purity cleaning and analytical services primarily for the semiconductor industry.
UCT offers its customers an integrated outsourced solution for major subassemblies, improved design-to-delivery cycle times, design for manufacturability, prototyping, and part and component manufacturing, as well as tool chamber parts cleaning and coating, and micro-contamination analytical services.
The company reports results for two segments: Products and Services.
The company’s Products segment primarily designs, engineers, and manufactures production tools, components and parts, and modules and subsystems for the semiconductor and display capital equipment markets. Products include chemical delivery modules, frame assemblies, gas delivery systems, fluid delivery systems, precision robotics, process modules, as well as other high-level assemblies.
The company’s Services segment provides ultra-high purity parts cleaning, process tool part recoating, surface encapsulation, and high sensitivity micro contamination analysis primarily for the semiconductor device makers and wafer fabrication equipment (‘WFE’) markets.
The company ships a majority of its products and provides most of its services to U.S. registered customers with both domestic and international locations. In addition to the U.S. manufacturing and service operations, the company manufactures products and provides parts cleaning and other related services in its Asia Pacific, Europe, and Middle East (‘EMEA’) facilities to support local and U.S.-based customers. The company conducts its operating activities primarily through its subsidiaries.
The company’s international revenues represented 73.0% of total revenues for the fiscal year ended 2024.
The company is a leading developer and supplier of critical subsystems, parts, components, and ultra-high purity cleaning and analytical services primarily for the semiconductor industry. The company offers its customers an integrated outsourced solution for major subassemblies, improved design-to-delivery cycle times, design for manufacturability, prototyping, and component manufacturing, tool chamber parts cleaning and coating, and micro contamination analytical services. The company’s leadership in the market is enabled by the following customer-centric solutions:
A vertically integrated solution for complex and highly configurable systems: The company provides its customers a broad outsourced solution for the development, design, component sourcing and cleaning, prototyping, engineering, and manufacturing and testing of advanced systems. The company utilizes its weldment and frame fabrication capabilities together with highly specialized engineering, global supply chain management, and assembly capabilities to produce high performance products that are customized to meet the needs of equipment suppliers and chipmakers. The company enables its customers to minimize their overall number of suppliers, simplify their supply chain, and reduce their inventories.
Parts and components: The company offers its customers a wide range of gas delivery solutions, such as ultra-clean valves, high purity connectors, industrial process connectors and valves, pneumatic actuators, manifolds and safety solutions, hoses, pressure gauges, gas line and component heaters, as well as complex weldments. These products comply with the highest quality standards to ensure accelerated performance in a variety of demanding environments and applications in the semiconductor, oil and gas, chemical and refinery, power, transportation, analytical, and gas manufacturing markets.
Subsystem manufacturing: The company’s experience with the demanding requirements in semiconductor equipment manufacturing has enabled it to become a leading developer and supplier of critical modules and subsystems. These assemblies include gas and fluid delivery solutions, wafer transport systems, mechatronic assemblies, process modules, and sub-fab process equipment support racks.
Improved design-to-delivery cycle times: The company’s strong customer relationships and familiarity with their product requirements and the ever-changing needs of their customer base help it reduce design-to-delivery cycle times. The company seeks to optimize its supply chain management, design, and manufacturing coordination and controls to respond rapidly to order requests, enabling it to decrease product design and customization cycle times for its customers. Because the company’s engineers work closely with its customers’ engineers and understand the fabrication, assembly, and testing of their products, it often can improve their design for manufacturability and implement automation, thereby reducing their cost and improving their quality and consistency.
Testing capabilities: The company utilizes its technical expertise to test and characterize key fluid delivery products. The company has made significant investments in advanced analytical and automated test equipment, enabling it to test and qualify key fluid delivery sub-systems and components across the entire range of extreme pressures and flows required to support leading-edge technologies.
Increased integration with OEMs through local presence: The company’s local presence in close proximity to the facilities of most of its OEM customers enables it to remain closely integrated with their design, development, and implementation teams. This level of integration enables the company to respond quickly and efficiently to customer changes and requests.
Precision fabrication: The company designs and manufactures weldments and frames with exacting standards to meet or exceed its customers’ needs. UCT has over 30 years of experience in the fabrication of complex gas delivery systems, which enables it to provide cost competitiveness in its vertical integration model.
Custom thermal control: The company designs and manufactures heaters, sensors, and controllers for precise temperature control. These products are complementary to the company’s gas delivery systems products.
Parts cleaning and coating and analytical verification: Through the company’s Services business, it offers integrated device manufacturers (‘IDM’) and OEMs validated, ultra-high purity process tool chamber parts cleaning and coating services. Included in these services are tool part process optimization solutions that could lower the total cost of ownership for its customers. The company also offers analytical verification of process tool chamber part cleaning effectiveness and micro contamination analysis of tool parts, wafers, and depositions, chemicals, cleanroom materials, deionized water, and airborne molecular contamination.
Strategy
The company’s strategy is to grow its position and increase its value to its customers as a leading solutions and service provider in the semiconductor markets it serves, while serving a limited number of other technologically similar market opportunities. The company’s strategy consists of the following key elements: expand the company’s solutions and service market share with semiconductor OEMs and IDMs; develop or acquire solutions that allow the company’s customers to succeed at the leading edge of the semiconductor processing nodes; leverage the company’s geographic presence in lower-cost manufacturing regions; drive profitable growth; continue to selectively pursue strategic acquisitions; and strengthen vertical integration.
Products
The company designs, develops, prototypes, manufactures, and tests subsystems, primarily for the semiconductor equipment market. The company’s products include precision robotic solutions, gas delivery systems, sub-fab process equipment support racks, a variety of industrial and automation production equipment products, and subsystems that include wafer cleaning modules, chemical delivery modules, top-plate assemblies, frame assemblies, and process modules. The company also offers a wide range of parts and components, such as ultra-clean valves, high purity connectors, industrial process connectors and valves, pneumatic actuators, manifolds and safety solutions, hoses, gas delivery systems, and pressure gauges.
Parts and components: Includes ultra-clean valves, high purity connectors, industrial process connectors and valves, pneumatic actuators, manifolds and safety solutions, hoses, pressure gauges, gas line and component heaters, as well as complex weldments. These products comply with the highest quality standards to ensure accelerated performance in a variety of demanding environments and applications in the semiconductor and other gas manufacturing markets.
Chemical delivery modules: Chemical delivery modules deliver gases and reactive chemicals in a liquid or gaseous form from a centralized subsystem to the reaction chamber.
Gas delivery systems: A typical OEM gas delivery system consists of one or more gas lines, consisting of weldments, filters, mass flow controllers, regulators, pressure transducers and valves, component heaters, and an integrated electronic and/or pneumatic control system. These systems are typically pallet mounted and are enclosed in a sheet metal encasing. The company’s gas delivery system designs are developed in collaboration with its customers and are customized to meet the needs of specific processing requirements for OEMs. While several customers specify the full system bill of materials, many leverage the company’s design expertise to help them select the appropriate components for their particular system.
Fluid delivery systems: A typical OEM liquid delivery system consists of one or more chemical delivery units, consisting of small diameter high purity perfluoroalkoxy (PFA) tubing, filters, flow controllers, regulators, component heaters, and an integrated electronic and/or pneumatic control system. These units are typically contained in a plastic enclosure and further integrated into a frame. The company’s liquid delivery system designs are developed in collaboration with its customers and are customized to meet the needs of specific processing requirements for OEMs. Although several customers specify the full system bill of materials, many rely on the company’s design expertise and component characterization capabilities to help them select the appropriate components for their particular system.
Precision robotics: Precision robotic systems are used when accurately controlled motion is required. Some of the systems that employ robotic systems are semiconductor wafer and chip handling, wire bonding, and industrial equipment.
Process modules: Process modules refer to the larger subsystems of semiconductor manufacturing tools that process integrated circuits onto wafers. Process modules include several smaller subsystems, such as the frame assembly, top-plate assembly, and gas and chemical delivery modules, as well as the chamber and electronic, pneumatic, and mechanical subsystems.
Other high-level assemblies: Other high-level assemblies refer to large subsystems used in semiconductor manufacturing and sub-fab, display, medical, energy, industrial, and research industries.
Services
The company’s services business includes ultra-high purity process tool chamber parts cleaning and coating services, tool part life extension and process tool part optimization solutions, and micro-contamination analytical testing, primarily for the semiconductor device manufacturers and wafer fabrication equipment markets.
Parts cleaning and coating: UCT offers customers validated, ultra-high purity outsourced process tool chamber parts cleaning and coating services. Included in these services are tool part process optimization solutions that can lower the total cost of ownership for its customers.
Micro-contamination analysis: UCT also offers micro-contamination analysis of tool parts, wafers, and depositions, chemicals, cleanroom materials, deionized water, and airborne molecular contamination, and provides analytical verification of process tool chamber part cleaning effectiveness.
Customers
The company sells its products and services primarily to customers in the semiconductor capital equipment and semiconductor integrated device manufacturing industries, and it also sells to the display, consumer, medical, energy, industrial, and research equipment industries.
The majority of the company’s total revenue comes from the highly concentrated semiconductor capital equipment industry (OEM customers), so it is dependent upon a small number of customers. The company’s two largest revenue customers in fiscal year 2024 were Applied Materials, Inc. and Lam Research Corporation, each of which accounted for more than 10% of its total revenues. As a group, the company’s respective year’s top two customers accounted for 54.5% of the company’s revenues for fiscal year 2024.
Approximately 94.9% of the company’s total revenues for fiscal year 2024 came from multiple segments of the semiconductor industry, which include IDM, Foundry, OEM, and sub-tier suppliers.
The company has successfully been qualified as a supplier of equipment, cleaning, coating, and analytical services with each of its customers who require such qualifications. This lengthy qualification process typically involves the inspection and audit of its facilities and evaluation by its customers of its engineering, documentation, manufacturing, and quality control processes and procedures. The company’s customers generally place orders with suppliers who meet their qualification criteria.
Customer Business Management
The company sells and supports its products and services through its Customer Business Management organization. The company’s customer relationship directors are responsible for establishing sales strategies and setting the objectives for specific customer accounts. Each customer relationship manager is dedicated to a specific customer account and is responsible for maintaining strong working relationships with that customer, and in many cases provides on-site support. OEM customer relationship managers often attend customers’ internal meetings related to production, engineering design, and quality to ensure that customer expectations are interpreted and communicated properly to the operations group. Customer relationship managers also work with customers to identify and meet their cost and design-to-delivery cycle time objectives. IDM customer relationship managers work with process tool owners and Fab maintenance managers relating to the development and validation of cleaning recipes, addressing new tools cleaning and analytical requirements, and optimizing cleaning processes and analytical testing requirements to support node transitions.
The company has dedicated New Business Development managers for both its product and service businesses. They are responsible for initiating and developing long-term, multi-level relationships and work closely with the customers on new business opportunities. The company’s Customer Business Management organization includes technical sales support for order placement, spare parts, quotes, and production status updates, as well as service and maintenance contracts and analysis business. The company has technical relationship representatives located at most of its facilities.
The company integrates new business wins into its facilities via a rigorous product transition process, working in concert with its customers to ensure all production, cleaning, and/or test requirements are identified, documented, and validated. The company employs the same process at all its sites, enabling products and service offerings to smoothly transition between its facilities as needed to support customer demand.
In addition, the company has developed an overall infrastructure to provide its customers with service and support 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The company’s dedicated global field service engineers provide customer support through the performance of on-site installation, servicing, and repair.
Technology Development
The company engages in ongoing technology development efforts to remain a leader for gas delivery systems and to further develop its expertise in other critical subsystems. The company works closely with its customers to identify and anticipate changes and trends in next-generation equipment and partners with them on process application requirements for gas and liquid delivery systems and other critical subsystems. These development efforts are designed to meet specific customer requirements in the areas of subsystem design, materials, component selection, and functionality. The company’s technology development group also works directly with its suppliers to help them identify new component technologies and make necessary changes or enhancements to the components that it integrates into its products. The company’s analytical and testing capabilities enable it to evaluate multiple supplier component technologies and provide its customers with a wide range of appropriate component and design choices for their gas delivery systems and other critical subsystems.
The company’s analytical and testing capabilities also help it anticipate technological changes and requirements in component features for its core next-generation gas delivery systems and other critical subsystems. The company is continuously developing additional features to improve the performance and functionality of these subsystems. The company’s technology development activities for next-generation gas delivery and other critical subsystems are supported by its global engineering group, with teams primarily located in the United States, Singapore, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and Israel.
The company is actively developing new technology and processes to maintain its leadership in the cleaning, coating, and analytical markets. The company’s Services business works closely with customers to identify and anticipate changes that will be required in next-generation equipment. UCT’s technical capability is extremely critical and differentiated to ensure high wafer yields and throughput as geometries shrink and density increases. The company’s Services business development activities are performed primarily in Hillsboro, Oregon; Phoenix, Arizona; Israel, and South Korea.
Intellectual Property
The company has over 100 patents with various expiration dates, and intellectual property that it develops on behalf of its customers that is generally owned exclusively by those customers.
Competition
The company’s principal competitor for gas delivery systems is Ichor Systems, Inc., and its principal competitors for other critical subsystems are Flex Ltd., Foxsemicon Integrated Technology Inc., Jabil, Inc., Sanmina Corporation, Fujikin Incorporated, VDL ETG, and Celestica Inc. For the company’s gas delivery component solutions, its principal competitors are Swagelok, Parker Hannifin, and Watlow. For the company’s services, cleaning, and coating offerings, its main competitors in the U.S. are Pentagon Technologies and Cleanpart, and in South Korea, KoMiCo. For analytical services, the company’s primary competitors are Balazs (an Air Liquide company) and Cerium Labs.
History
Ultra Clean Holdings, Inc., a Delaware corporation, was founded in 1991. The company was incorporated in 2002.
