Tokyo Electron shares surge 6.24% on strong earnings

Onto Innovation has emerged as a key beneficiary of the AI semiconductor investment cycle, with its stock jumping 125.6% in a year, roughly matching the Zacks Nanotechnology industry's 125.7% gain and outpacing the Zacks Computer and Technology sector and the S&P 500 composite, which rose 26% and 15.5%, respectively. The company reported record second-quarter revenue of $343.1 million, up 35.3% year over year and nearly 18% sequentially, with non-GAAP earnings per share of $1.93 versus $1.25 a year earlier, while backlog exceeded $1 billion for the first time. Management raised its second-half 2026 revenue, margin and EPS outlook, guiding third-quarter revenue of $380 to $400 million and expecting gross margin to expand by another 50 basis points in each of the third and fourth quarters, with operating margin improving 200 basis points to 31.5-32.5% in the third quarter and exceeding 33% by year-end. The company also raised its 2026 advanced-packaging growth outlook to at least 80% from more than 50% previously and now expects advanced-nodes revenue to grow more than 35% in 2026, up from about 25%, helped by its Dragonfly G5 platform and more than $200 million in Dragonfly orders from a single OSAT, mostly for 2027 delivery. In April 2026, Onto Innovation agreed to acquire a 27% stake in Rigaku Holdings for about $710 million, and it ended the second quarter with $1.88 billion in cash and short-term investments, though risks include customer concentration, with four customers accounting for 57.3% of first-half 2026 revenue, and a forward price/earnings multiple of 30.23X versus the industry's 5.83X.

SUSS MicroTec SE has entered the wafer-level cleaning market with the launch of its new GreenTec Solutions product line and its first system, the GT200. The company said the wafer-cleaning market it is targeting represents an addressable market of approximately EUR 5.4 billion, driven by advanced packaging, heterogeneous integration and rising semiconductor demand from AI and high-performance computing. The GT200 is designed for research and development, process qualification and production in 200 mm manufacturing environments for MEMS, RF, Power Device and CMOS applications, and combines the company's TurbulenStrip and CrustBuster process technologies in a single platform. SUSS said the GT200 is the first member of a scalable GreenTec platform and that it will expand toward high-volume manufacturing with a dedicated 300 mm HVM platform in 2027, pulled in from its original schedule due to strong customer interest, followed by a 200 mm HVM platform in 2028. Chief Executive Officer Burkhardt Frick called the launch an important milestone in the execution of the company's Ambition 2030 strategy, while Senior Vice President Photomask Solutions Yuta Nagai said the product line represents its vision for a next generation of semiconductor manufacturing where sustainability and process excellence go hand in hand.

ACM Research Shanghai released a voluntary announcement on the evening of September 30, stating that as of September 29, 2026, the company's total orders in hand amounted to 17.073 billion yuan, an increase of 88.20 percent compared with the orders in hand voluntarily disclosed in the same period last year. The company said that since 2026, the semiconductor equipment manufacturing industry has continued its rapid growth trend, and the company's revenue has maintained sustained growth. The previously released half-year report showed that operating revenue in the first half of the year reached 3.718 billion yuan, up 13.87 percent year on year, while net profit attributable to the parent company was 989 million yuan, up 42.14 percent year on year. The company has already disclosed its full-year 2026 earnings forecast, expecting annual operating revenue to be between 8.2 billion and 8.8 billion yuan.

China's chipmaking equipment industry is growing rapidly as wafer fabs across the country turn to buying 100% domestically produced machinery after supply chain restrictions imposed by Western nations. Data from Google Trends for August to September 2026 shows surging keywords including China Semiconductor Tooling Localization and Domestic Wafer Fab Equipment, while retail investors continue searching for ASML China Export Restrictions. One clear beneficiary is NAURA Technology Group, or 002371.SZ, whose product lines cover etching equipment, thin-film deposition, and wafer cleaning tools, placing it close to Applied Materials and allowing Chinese fabs to procure nearly an entire equipment suite in a single package, with its order backlog overflowing under the National Semiconductor Self-Reliance policy. Another is Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment, or AMEC, or 688012.SS, a specialist in plasma etching whose CCP and ICP etchers can compete with Lam Research and which has repeatedly won patent cases against major multinational giants, allowing it to rapidly expand its share of the Chinese market from the tens of percent range to a market-leading position.