Lam Research

Lam Research Corporation is a global leader in semiconductor wafer fabrication equipment, headquartered in Fremont, California. Founded in January 1980 by David K. Lam, the company has grown from a small startup funded by its founder's widowed mother to one of the largest and most innovative semiconductor equipment manufacturers in the world, with approximately 18,300 employees and $16.2 billion in revenue for calendar year 2024.

Lam Research specializes in designing and building advanced equipment that enables the production of modern integrated circuits and memory chips. The company's core technologies focus on four critical processes in semiconductor manufacturing: thin film deposition (laying down sub-microscopic layers of conducting or insulating materials), plasma etch (selectively removing materials to create circuit features), photoresist strip (cleaning wafers between processing steps), and wafer cleaning. Lam holds the top market share in etch equipment and clear second position in deposition, with an impressive 80% market share in sub-5nm etch equipment as of 2025.

The company has positioned itself at the forefront of the AI chip revolution and next-generation semiconductor technologies. Lam Research's equipment is essential for manufacturing high-bandwidth memory (HBM), advanced packaging, and cutting-edge logic chips that power artificial intelligence applications. In 2024, the company's shipments for gate-all-around (GAA) nodes and advanced packaging exceeded $1 billion, with management expecting this figure to triple to more than $3 billion in 2025. Lam's "4-Horsemen" technology focus areas—Gate All Around, Backside Power, Advanced Packaging, and Dry Resist—represent the future of semiconductor manufacturing.

Lam Research's financial performance in fiscal year 2025 (ending June 2025) demonstrated exceptional strength, with revenue reaching $18.4 billion, a 23.7% increase from fiscal 2024, and net income of $5.4 billion, up 40% year-over-year. The company achieved a gross margin of 48.2%, the highest annual result since merging with Novellus in 2013. Geographically, China accounted for 34% of revenue, followed by Korea (22%), Taiwan (19%), Japan (10%), United States (7%), Southeast Asia (5%), and Europe (3%).

Under the leadership of CEO Timothy M. Archer, who joined the company in 2012 and became CEO in 2018, Lam Research has demonstrated remarkable innovation. Recent product launches include the Lam Cryo™ 3.0 cryogenic etch technology for 3D NAND scaling (paving the way for 1,000-layer chips), ALTUS® Halo system using molybdenum interconnects (reducing resistivity by 30% for AI chips), and Akara systems for advanced semiconductor manufacturing. The company's Equipment Intelligence® platform won the 2024 Innovative Product of the Year award in the AI/Machine Learning category, showcasing Lam's commitment to using AI to optimize chip production.

As a fundamental enabler of the fourth industrial revolution and trusted partner to the world's leading semiconductor companies including TSMC, Samsung, Intel, and SK Hynix, Lam Research continues to drive innovation that enables smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient chips that power everything from smartphones to data centers to artificial intelligence systems.