Over the course of 50 years we have grown to become a global company that develops innovative solutions for our customers, and manages the best interests of our investors, our employees, society and other stakeholders. Read on to discover what we achieved in 2018.
The demand for smaller, faster and cheaper semiconductor chips continues to rise, driven by advancements in cloud computing, artificial intelligence, smartphones and the Internet of Things.
Our technology is the first step towards making it all possible, as our R&D investment in new materials, new products and new processes means we can help our customers develop their technology roadmap, and further extend Moore’s Law.
In 2018, this led to the introduction of the Synergis ALD tool, which leverages the core technologies from our Pulsar and EmerALD ALD products for high productivity thermal ALD applications. The new Synergis tool allows us to address more ALD applications and therefore increases our served market. Together with our other products and services, this contributed to our strong financial results, which included:
We operate in a fast-paced industry that continues to reshape the world, and our innovative technology enables the semiconductor industry to achieve advancements in computing, communications, energy, transportation, medicine and beyond.
To ensure that we can continue to make a difference to our customers, employees, and company stakeholders, in 2018 we concentrated on the following three key elements of our strategy.
In addition to our fundamental R&D efforts, we continuously expand and deepen our strategic cooperation with key customers, suppliers, chemical manufacturers, and research institutes. This approach enables us to remain innovative and swiftly meet the changing demands of our customers.
We are a key player in the deposition equipment segments for ALD and epitaxy, and a focused niche player for PECVD and vertical furnaces. As a leader in the segment, ALD has turned into a key growth driver for our business, from which we support virtually all of the leading customers in the semiconductor industry. Our newest ALD tool, Synergis, is designed to address a wide range of existing and new ALD applications, effectively increasing the market we serve.
In addition to our internal optimization programs, we are working with our suppliers to improve fundamental quality through statistical methods and process controls. In addition to addressing the technology needs of our customers, we also focus on further increasing equipment throughput and equipment reliability, thereby lowering the cost per wafer of our wafer processing systems.
In 2018, we achieved revenue growth of 11% reaching a record high revenue of €818 million, with sales increasing mainly in the logic, DRAM and analog segments. By industry segment, our 2018 revenue stream was led by memory, closely followed by the logic and foundry segments.
While our ALD product lines continued to be our key sales driver in 2018, accounting for more than half of total equipment revenue, our other product lines also contributed strongly. In our epitaxy product line we increased sales, following the strong growth we achieved in 2017, and we saw additional sales increases in PECVD and vertical furnaces.
Our industry experienced continued growth in 2018, with worldwide semiconductor industry sales increasing by around 14%. This was driven by high memory prices and broad-based electronics demand for cloud services, mobile devices, automotive and industrial applications. These drivers helped the wafer fab equipment market grow by around 10% in 2018.
Our 2018 sales grew to record levels, reaching €818 million. ALD continued to be the key driver, although the other product lines also made a strong contribution.
We benefited from a further increase in wafer fab equipment spending following the very strong market growth in 2017. Our operating profit increased to €124.3 million from €113.2 million in 2017, while the operating profit margin remained stable.
New bookings increased by 22% in 2018 to €942 million, with equipment bookings for ASMI as a whole led by logic, followed by foundry and then memory. Total research and development (R&D) expenses, excluding impairment charges, decreased by 1% in 2018 compared to 2017, mainly as a result of higher capitalization of development expenses.
Our 2018 sales grew to record levels, reaching €818 million. ALD continued to be the key driver, although the other product lines also made a strong contribution.
We benefited from a further increase in wafer fab equipment spending following the very strong market growth in 2017. Our operating profit increased to €124.3 million from €113.2 million in 2017, while the operating profit margin remained stable.
New bookings increased by 22% in 2018 to €942 million, with equipment bookings for ASMI as a whole led by logic, followed by foundry and then memory. Total research and development (R&D) expenses, excluding impairment charges, decreased by 1% in 2018 compared to 2017, mainly as a result of higher capitalization of development expenses.
During 2018, we returned approximately €607 million to shareholders in the form of dividends, share buybacks and the capital return. This was up from €281 million in 2017 and €140 million in 2016.
Over the 2010-2018 period, we returned more than €1.6 billion to the financial markets through dividends, share buybacks, return of capital, and buyback of convertible bonds.
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In 2018, we paid a dividend of €0.80 per common share and we will propose to the forthcoming AGM to declare a dividend of €1.00 per share for 2019. The proposed 2019 dividend will mark the ninth consecutive year that we have paid a dividend.
We have helped shape the industry by driving innovation through our collaborative research and development (R&D) models. Our success is largely dependent on our ability to develop new products and new materials, and to continuously improve existing products and materials. Achieving this requires a large commitment to R&D. In 2018 and 2017, our R&D investments were €125 million and €114 million respectively. As of year-end 2018, 544 employees were employed in R&D, representing 25% of our total staff.
As a global company, we carry out research and development (R&D) on different continents, giving us access to the smartest professionals working in the semiconductor sector today, and bringing our R&D closer to our customers. In our research centers in Belgium, Finland, Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea, and the United States we are active at all stages of our innovations’ life cycle, from developing the basic chemistry and materials to implementing improvements on our equipment at our customers’ production sites. We also work with specialists across a wide array of disciplines to develop our future products, including scientists from research institutes, universities, and suppliers.
With our R&D activities chiefly conducted in the principal semiconductor markets of the world, we are able to draw on innovative and technical capabilities internationally. Each geographical center provides expertise for specific products or technologies, and interacts with customers on a global scale. This approach, combined with structured and managed interactions between the individual centers, enables the efficient allocation of resources during development and new product introductions.
Under the umbrella of our global product development policies, our local activities are directed both towards expanding and improving existing product lines to incorporate technology improvements and reduce product cost and total cost of ownership, as well as developing new products for existing and new markets. These activities require the application of physics, chemistry, materials science, electrical engineering, precision mechanical engineering, software engineering, and systems engineering.
A global platform engineering group addresses the needs for common platforms and software for the various products in our product portfolio. This helps us drive standardization of hardware and software through the organization. A corporate R&D group consisting mainly of resources in Leuven, Belgium and Helsinki, Finland addresses common needs for advanced process and materials development, and process integration work for the 5nm, 3nm and 2nm nodes, and even beyond.
Location | Number of R&D employees as of December 31, 2018, exclusive of temporary workers | |
Almere, the Netherlands | 36 | |
Leuven, Belgium | 33 | |
Helsinki, Finland | 31 | |
Phoenix, Arizona, United States | 180 | |
Dongtan, South Korea | 132 | |
Singapore | 2 | |
Tokyo, Japan | 130 | |
Total | 544 |
With our customers, we co-create and jointly develop technology roadmaps, to timely develop the new processes and materials our customers need for their next generation products. The diversity in collaborations, ranging from early research to pilot production, helps us reduce risk as early as possible in the innovation life cycle.
As part of our R&D activities, we are engaged in various formal and informal arrangements with customers, suppliers, research institutes and universities.
We have specific bilateral research activities with several key academic groups at universities in Asia, Europe, and North America, typically centric to our core R&D focus on new equipment, material and process developments.
We contribute to several process and equipment development projects at the major Dutch technical universities through the Dutch NWO (Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research) funding organization in the domain TTW (covering Applied and Engineering Sciences), and in Belgium we participate in the industrial users group for several projects supported by the Flemish funding organization VLAIO (Agency for Innovation and Entrepreneurship).
We participate in select publicly-funded programs to research and develop technology for semiconductor devices with line widths of 5nm and below, and in ‘More than Moore’ technologies. We are also involved in several cluster development programs in the Eureka initiative, as a member of the AENEAS (Association for European NanoElectronics Activities) as mentor or reviewer, and in road-mapping activities.
And finally, we occasionally cooperate with other semiconductor capital equipment suppliers in complementary fields, in order to gain knowledge on the performance of our own deposition processes, in cooperation with other processes, either in bilateral or consortia projects.
We expect new deposition technologies and chemistries to be a major driver for new intellectual property (IP) in the future. Patents give us a right to protect our products or aspects thereof, and enable us to speak more openly about our inventions and share ideas in the marketplace that benefit our customers.
We understand that a failure to adequately protect our IP and/or leakage of our IP could result in the loss of our competitive advantage and adversely impact our financial performance.
We have implemented a program that protects IP for us, our customers, our suppliers and our partners. We train all employees not only on the importance of IP protection, but also on how to recognize and report possible IP infractions. This training is provided to all new hires, and employees are given regular refresher training.
Our patents are usually registered in the principal countries where semiconductor devices or equipment are manufactured and/or sold. Our vision is to increase our value to our customers and shareholders by using our IP in a way that differentiates our products, influences the market, and provides additional monetization opportunities.
Our technologies, innovations, IP, products and process data, as well as the sensitive information about our customers, suppliers, and employees, are valuable assets. Any breach of our information systems could adversely affect our finances and operating results, as well as our reputation. Information security is a material aspect to us and our stakeholders, and requires the proper controls to protect it.
Our approach to information security management includes developing and sustaining a proper global IT security management framework with a policy, processes, and controls to protect against unauthorized system access and loss of valuable information, regardless of location.
In 2018, we continued to assess our position on network security and took steps to enhance the security posture of our global network, improved employee education, and awareness on cyber security/safety, and made infrastructure modernization enhancements.