Onto Innovation Completes Strategic Investment in Rigaku to Advance Next-Gen X-ray Solutions
Onto Innovation has announced the successful closing of its previously announced acquisition of a 27% minority equity stake in Rigaku Holdings Corporation from Atom Investment, L.P., an affiliate of Carlyle, for 113,078,356,600 billion yen, or approximately US$720 million. The investment deepens the strategic collaboration between the two companies, first announced in April 2026, to advance X-ray technologies for emerging applications in semiconductor manufacturing process control.
The evolving complexity of advanced logic and memory design, as well as the advanced packaging architectures used for tighter integration is creating an increase in reliance on novel and exotic materials. While this drives greater demand for process control solutions such as optical critical dimension (OCD) metrology it’s also creating emerging opportunities for the capabilities inherent in X‑ray technology.
Onto Innovation has been actively collaborating with Rigaku to develop X‑ray solutions, integrating Onto Innovation’s leading Ai Diffract analysis software with Rigaku’s critical dimension small‑angle X‑ray scattering (CD‑SAXS) platforms. This new offering has already been selected by key customers, addresses a market that external analysts estimate to be in excess of $1 billion within the next five years, and creates incremental opportunities for Onto Innovation’s Ai Diffract and OCD solutions to complement the X-ray technology.
“As semiconductor innovation advances rely increasingly on more complex 3D architectures and exotic materials, our customers face growing challenges in understanding and controlling their most critical manufacturing processes,” said Mike Plisinski, chief executive officer of Onto Innovation. “We are excited by the initial success of our collaboration. This investment strengthens our partnership, accelerates innovation, and enhances our ability to provide more holistic process control solutions to support our customers as they introduce the next generation of semiconductor technologies into high-volume production.”
Onto Innovation will account for the investment under the fair value option method and will not consolidate Rigaku’s financial results. Onto Innovation will nominate a director to serve on Rigaku’s board.
For more information: www.ontoinnovation.com
