KLA Corporation is an American capital equipment company based in Milpitas, California. It supplies process control and yield management systems for the semiconductor industry and other related nanoelectronics industries. The company's products and services are intended for all phases of wafer, reticle, integrated circuit (IC) and packaging production, from research and development to final volume manufacturing. History KLA-Tencor was formed in 1997 through the merger of KLA Instruments and Tencor Instruments, two companies in the semiconductor equipment and yield management systems industry. The merger was intended to create a single source for chip process and diagnostics equipment. KLA Instruments was founded in 1975 by Ken Levy and Bob Anderson, and focused on photomask detection to identify chip defects. KLA later broadened its product line to include wafer inspection, wafer metrology and integrated inspection and analysis software. Tencor was founded in 1976 by Czech scientist and US immigrant Karel Urbanek, along with colleague John Schwabacher. The company initially focused on making precise measurements of semiconductor film layer thickness, and in 1984, developed laser-scanning technology to detect particle and other contamination. The company also developed defect review and data analysis equipment. At the time of the merger, the companies' combined revenue was greater than $1 billion. In February 1998, KLA-Tencor acquired Freiburg, Germany-based Nanopro GmbH, a company that used advanced interferometric technology for wafer shape and thickness measurements. In April, the company acquired Amray, Inc., a Bedford, Massachusetts-based provider of scanning electron microscope (SEM) systems for applications including semiconductor manufacturing. In June, the company acquired San Jose, CA-based VARS, a developer of image archiving and retrieval systems. In November, KLA-Tencor acquired the Quantox line of oxide monitoring products from Solon, Ohio-based measurement and instrument company Keithley Instruments. In December, the company acquired the Ultrapointe subsidiary of Uniphase Corporation. In December 1999, the company acquired Taiwan-based yield analysis software maker ACME Systems. In February 2000, KLA-Tencor acquired Austin, Texas-based Finle Technologies, Inc., a developer of lithography modeling and analysis software. In March, the company acquired Austin, Texas-based advanced process control (APC) software developer Fab Solutions, from parent ObjectSpace. In 2001, the company acquired yield management and process control company Phase Metrics, Inc. In 2004, KLA-Tencor acquired surface inspection system manufacturer Candela Instruments, Inc. and the Wafer Inspection Systems business of Inspex, Inc. In 2006, the company acquired ADE Corporation, a supplier of silicon wafer metrology and related gear. In 2007, KLA-Tencor acquired lithography