1. Onto Innovation in 30 seconds

2. The logo and how the name is written

3. What the company actually does, including how the merger came about

First, the facts of the merger

The description "a company formed in 2019 by the merger of Rudolph Technologies and Nanometrics" can be checked against the SEC filings as follows Sourced.

The business today

The company describes itself as a worldwide leader in the design, development, manufacture and support of metrology and inspection tools for the semiconductor industry Sourced. What it sells falls into three parts.

The customers are silicon wafer makers, integrated circuit manufacturers and advanced packaging manufacturers. The company states explicitly that its products are used in both the front end and the back end Sourced.

4. Scale: five years of revenue

FY2025 was a 53-week year. R&D expense rose 37.3% over the five years, taking it from 12.2% to 13.1% of revenue Our calculation.

What happened in FY2025

Revenue was essentially flat, up 1.8%, but net income fell 32.2%, from US$201.67m to US$136.76m Our calculation. The company gives three reasons Sourced.

1. Gross margin fell from 52.2% to 49.7%, on write-downs of slow-moving and obsolete inventory, restructuring costs tied to an infrastructure transition, and start-up costs for outsourced manufacturing
2. Operating expenses rose from US$328.21m to US$366.84m, on restructuring costs, transaction costs and intangible amortisation from the Semilab USA acquisition, R&D project costs and higher personnel costs
3. A change in the revenue mix: NAND and OSAT business grew while foundry and DRAM business shrank

Into 2026

All figures on a GAAP basis. The third-quarter 2026 column is the company's guidance, not an actual result Not yet confirmed. Second-quarter 2026 revenue of US$343.1m was a quarterly record, and the six-month total was US$635.1m.

5. Company category and position in the back-end industry

The category is a manufacturer, of inspection and metrology equipment. It makes no chips, assembles no packages and supplies no materials. In the back-end supply chain it is the party that delivers tools into the plants of the OSATs and the memory makers.

To be a little more concrete, here is where in the process flow the company's tools sit.

6. Sites and the countries where it manufactures

The footprint has one very clear feature: all manufacturing is inside the United States, and the overseas sites do sales and service only Sourced. The Form 10-K states that substantially all of the company's long-lived assets are located in the United States.

From the principal facilities table of the Form 10-K, as of 3 January 2026. There are leased properties in Germany, the Netherlands, Malaysia and Vietnam as well. The longest lease runs to 30 November 2035.

7. Leading products and share in semiconductor back-end work

The products that touch the back end

Panels: a big story for this company

The passage in the Form 10-K that goes furthest on the back end concerns the move from round 300mm wafers to rectangular panels Sourced.

A round wafer wastes area at the edge; a rectangular panel can be tiled without gaps. The larger the AI chip package, the more that difference matters. But flatness, warpage and thermal expansion all become harder to control, so the need for inspection goes up, not down. That is why this company welcomes the shift to panels.

On market share, plainly

What primary material does give is the list of competitors the company names itself Sourced. Note that the rival differs from market to market.

The company also states that some competitors may have greater financial, research, manufacturing and marketing resources than it does.

Where the customers are concentrated

The totals are this article's own arithmetic Our calculation. The company does not name its customers Not yet confirmed. As of 3 January 2026, one customer accounted for about 12% of accounts receivable.

8. Current investment plans

This is not a company that builds factories, so capital expenditure is small (US$28.51m in FY2025) and the spending that drives growth goes into research and development and acquisitions.

The Semilab USA acquisition, November 2025

In the fourth quarter of FY2025 the company acquired Semilab USA LLC, a subsidiary of Hungary's Semilab International Zrt., for a total of US$526.6m Sourced. Three product lines came with it.

This acquisition was not a back-end move. All three added product lines address wafers and materials, which reads as a sign that the company does not intend to rest on the back end alone.

9. Major corporate partners

The corporate relationships that primary sources do establish are these.

10. Where the company is heading in this field

What is established

Outlook

Not yet confirmed Read plainly, the facts above point towards this company holding its place in back-end inspection and metrology for now. There are two reasons. One is that the competitors it names in advanced packaging inspection number just two, KLA and Camtek. The other is that the more complex a package becomes, the more inspection steps it needs, while an inspection tool, unlike a process tool, is not really a contest of how many wafers one machine can run, so rising volume translates fairly directly into more tools sold.

Not yet confirmed The weaknesses have to be held in view as well. At about US$1bn of revenue, this company is an order of magnitude smaller than KLA. R&D spending of US$131.98m a year is less than one division of a large rival. Strong in a specific domain, vulnerable to being outspent is exactly the structure the company itself writes into its risk factors, in the line about competitors that may have greater resources Sourced.

11. The risks this company carries

12. Glossary

AI-generated concept

13. References

1. Onto Innovation Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 3, 2026 (filed with the U.S. SEC on 24 February 2026). Revenue, operating income, net income, R&D expense and capital expenditure; the revenue split by line; revenue by region; customer concentration; headcount and its composition; the principal facilities table; the description of products and markets; the named competitors; the Semilab USA acquisition; and risk factors.https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/704532/000119312526066937/onto-20260103.htm
2. Onto Innovation Second quarter 2026 earnings release (Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1, 6 August 2026). Second-quarter and six-month results, backlog above US$1bn, the trend in advanced nodes and advanced packaging, and third-quarter guidance.https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/704532/000119312526337990/onto-ex99_1.htm
3. Onto Innovation (then Nanometrics Incorporated) Form 8-K (filed with the U.S. SEC on 28 October 2019). Completion of the merger with Rudolph Technologies, the 0.8042 exchange ratio, the change of name to Onto Innovation Inc., and the move from NASDAQ to the NYSE with the change of ticker.https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/704532/000119312519275593/d823487d8k.htm
4. U.S. SEC EDGAR XBRL company facts API (CIK 0000704532). Revenue, operating income, net income, R&D expense and capital expenditure for FY2021 to FY2025, as tagged in each year's Form 10-K.https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl/companyfacts/CIK0000704532.json
5. U.S. SEC EDGAR submissions API (CIK 0000704532). The record of the former name "NANOMETRICS INC" (8 September 1995 to 25 October 2019), the listing venue (NYSE), the ticker (ONTO) and the head office address.https://data.sec.gov/submissions/CIK0000704532.json
6. Onto Innovation (then Nanometrics Incorporated) Form 8-K (filed with the U.S. SEC on 24 October 2019). Approval of the merger proposals at the special meeting of stockholders, and the increase in authorised shares from 47 million to 97 million.https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/704532/000119312519273698/d823625d8k.htm

14. Claim-to-source audit

Last updated 21 September 2026 / Troy Technical
Every figure in this article comes from the statutory filings that Onto Innovation Inc., and Nanometrics Incorporated before the merger, submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. No research-firm estimates or press-based figures have been used.