PVA TePla gains share in non‑destructive HBM bond inspection as packaging demand heats up

PVA TePla is telling investors that ultrasound metrology is gaining ground in semiconductor manufacturing and advanced packaging as chipmakers add more bond inspection steps. (pvatepla.com) The company’s March 19, 2026 full-year presentation said metrology orders were around €50 million year to date in the first quarter, with some deliveries already scheduled for 2027. It also said the metrology order run-rate should accelerate from late second-half 2026. (pvatepla.com) PVA’s investor deck put the acoustic metrology market at about $333 million in 2025 and showed its own share at 22%, with a 2028 market estimate of roughly $550 million and a target share range of 30% to 40%. (marketscreener.com) (pvatepla.com) The basic problem is simple: modern memory and chiplet packages stack and bond multiple pieces of silicon, and manufacturers need to find hidden cracks, voids, and delamination without destroying the part. PVA TePla’s scanning acoustic microscopy uses ultrasound to image those internal interfaces. (pvatepla.com) (edn.com) That matters for high-bandwidth memory and hybrid bonding because the defects are buried inside bonded layers, where optical checks cannot see and destructive analysis is too slow for production. EDN reported in August 2024 that scanning acoustic microscopy was becoming a preferred method for stacked dies and wafers. (edn.com) PVA executives and engineers have been making that case in public for more than a year. An IEEE Hybrid Bonding Symposium talk by PVA TePla’s Peter Hoffrogge said scanning acoustic microscopy is the state of the art for inline metrology on hybrid-bonded wafers. (ieeetv.ieee.org) That same IEEE summary said leading-edge processes already require detection below 10 microns and may need to go below 5 microns in coming years. For thinned chips, it said ultra-high-frequency methods can push capability toward 1 micron. (ieeetv.ieee.org) PVA’s 2025 annual report said the company holds a leading position in acoustic microscopy and highlighted advanced packaging inspection as one of its metrology applications. The report also said the group employed about 925 people across 12 sites in eight countries in 2025. (pvatepla.com) The near-term story is less a single contract announcement than a capacity build-out around packaging yield. If more HBM and hybrid-bond lines move from lab work to volume production, inspection tools that can check every bond without scrapping the device move closer to the center of the process flow. (pvatepla.com) (edn.com)