MKS (MKSI)
Combines vacuum control, photonics, lasers, and surface chemistry for advanced manufacturing.
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MKS makes parts and chemicals that go inside other companies' factory machines — the gauges, gas controls and power boxes built into chipmaking tools, and the liquid chemistry that lays metal onto circuit boards. Its customers are the machine builders and board plants, not the people buying finished chips. The AI build-out has demand running hot, while the debt from buying the chemistry business is still being paid down.
Item facts: FY2025 · year ended Dec 31, 2025, from filings, earnings calls and company pages.
Judgment weights, not filed revenue
The band summarizes business focus and direction. ~ marks estimates.
9 in detail · 10 more below
Pressure, Vacuum and Materials Delivery Solutions
Gauges, valves and gas-metering devices sold to the firms that build chipmaking machines — the oldest and largest MKS family, roughly a fifth of sales. No single customer reaches a tenth of company revenue. Watch machine orders rather than chip demand.
Competes with Vacuum gauges and pressure measurement (INFICON) · Flow and pressure instruments (Brooks Instrument) · Vacuum isolation valves (VAT Group)
In plain English
Making a computer chip means doing chemistry inside a sealed metal chamber with almost all the air pumped out, then feeding in precise puffs of gas. Somebody has to measure that near-emptiness and meter those gases. That is what these instruments do.
MKS does not sell them to chip plants. It sells them to the companies that build the chamber machines, which design an MKS gauge or gas valve into their tool and order one with every machine they ship. Once a design is signed off, swapping the part means re-testing the whole recipe — so the slot tends to stay put. MKS says its parts sit on machines covering most of the world's chip-equipment spending.
Plasma and Reactive Gas Products
The boxes that make chemically hungry gas for growing layers and cleaning chambers — roughly eight percent of sales. Management named it first among this year's semiconductor drivers and flagged strong orders for advanced memory work. Watch layering and cleaning steps per chip.
Competes with Remote plasma and power subsystems (Advanced Energy Industries) · Gas analysis and process monitoring (Horiba) · Reactive-gas measurement (INFICON)
In plain English
Electricity, pushed hard enough through a gas, tears it into a charged soup that reacts with nearly anything it touches — plasma. MKS builds the units that make it and pipe it where it is wanted: to grow thin layers on a wafer, to strip residue off chamber walls afterwards, or to clean exhaust lines.
Demand follows how many layering and cleaning steps a chip recipe needs, not how many chips get made, which is why management ties it to memory and leading-edge logic capacity. MKS says it is the approved supplier for dissolved-gas work in advanced logic — an approval that is slow to win and slow to lose.
Power Solutions
Radio-wave power supplies that energise the charged gas doing the etching — about seven percent of sales. MKS claims a lead in the deepest, narrowest etching; an older outside ranking put Advanced Energy ahead overall. Watch memory-chip upgrade spending.
Competes with RF power delivery and matching (Advanced Energy Industries) · RF generators and matchboxes (COMET Group)
In plain English
The charged gas that does the etching needs something to energise it, and how hard you push decides how deep and how straight the hole comes out. These are the power units that do the pushing, plus a tuning box that keeps the energy going into the gas instead of bouncing back.
They ship inside the chamber machine, bought by the machine builder rather than the chip plant. MKS says it leads in the hardest version of this — etching holes many times deeper than they are wide — and named upgrades to memory-chip lines as a driver this year. Advanced Energy ranked ahead of MKS in these power units on a ranking built from 2021 data.
Atotech Electronics Chemistry
The liquid chemistry that lays metal onto circuit boards and chip packages — about a seventh of sales and the highest-margin line MKS has. Sales rose 21% in the June quarter, and AI-related work is up to roughly 15% of chemistry sales from about 10% a year earlier.
Competes with MacDermid Alpha electronics chemistry (Element Solutions) · Electronics plating chemistry (Uyemura) · Electronics plating chemistry (Qnity Electronics)
In plain English
A circuit board is a stack of thin sheets with metal paths on them and small holes drilled through so the layers can reach each other. Getting metal to grow evenly inside a hole too small to see into is a chemistry problem, and Atotech — the plating-chemistry business MKS bought in 2022 — sells the baths and additives that solve it.
Customers reorder it constantly, because every board that runs through the line uses some up. Sales follow how intricate boards get, not how many gadgets ship, so the line keeps compounding through weak phone and PC years. One input, palladium, is billed straight through at no profit.
Atotech Chemistry Equipment
The plating machines themselves — roughly eight percent of sales, sold at thinner margins on purpose because each line installed pulls years of chemistry orders behind it. Management calls demand the strongest it has ever been, with order visibility into 2027.
Competes with PCB and plating line equipment (Schmid Group) · Plating line equipment (Process Automation International) · MacDermid Alpha equipment-plus-chemistry bundles (Element Solutions)
In plain English
A plating line is a long row of linked tanks that a board travels through, dipped and rinsed under computer control until the metal sits where it should. MKS builds those lines and the software that runs them.
The machines earn less per dollar than the chemistry does, and that is deliberate: whoever sold the line usually supplies the liquid that flows through it, so a line placed today is chemistry orders for years afterwards. Board and chip-package plants adding capacity for AI servers are the buyers. MKS is doubling its Guangzhou machine plant — a $25 million project aimed at late 2027 — to keep up with the orders.
Photonics and Optics — Newport, Ophir, Spectra-Physics
Lasers, optics and precision stages sold to makers of the machines that print and inspect chip patterns, plus research labs and defence buyers — roughly a seventh of sales. Management says it is gaining ground with pattern-printing and inspection tool makers.
Competes with Industrial and ultrafast lasers (Coherent Corp.) · Fiber lasers (IPG Photonics) · Photonics components and instruments (Thorlabs) · Precision motion and positioning (PI miCos)
In plain English
Three old names sit here: Spectra-Physics lasers, Newport optics and stages, Ophir infrared lenses and beam meters. Between them they make light, steer it, hold the parts still enough to matter, and measure what came out the other end.
The buyers are companies building the machines that print circuit patterns onto wafers and then check the result, along with research labs and defence programmes wanting infrared optics. A machine builder designs in a particular lens or laser and reorders it with each build. On the industrial side, management pointed to data-communications equipment and defence as what turned that market back up this year.
ESI Laser Systems for PCB Drilling
Machines that punch the tiny holes through circuit boards with laser pulses — roughly five percent of sales. Written down in 2023, so the recovery runs off a low base. Bendable-board demand was strong in the June quarter, with a seasonal lull guided for autumn.
Competes with Laser via-drilling systems (Via Mechanics) · Laser drilling tools (Mitsubishi Electric) · Laser drilling systems (EO Technics)
In plain English
Every hole through a circuit board has to be made somehow, and at this size a drill bit is no use — you burn through with pulses of laser light instead. ESI, a brand MKS bought in 2019, builds the machines that do it, for bendable circuits and rigid boards alike.
These are one-off purchases: a board plant signs a large cheque, takes delivery, and nothing more arrives until the next machine. The business was written down heavily in 2023, so today's growth starts from a small base. Bendable-board customers bought well in the June quarter, with management flagging a seasonal lull in those machines next quarter; rigid-board interest is picking up on running costs.
MKS Global Service
Spares, repairs, calibration and upgrades on hardware already installed in customers' factories — $495M in 2025, the one piece MKS reports exactly. Its job is to grow steadily while the equipment side swings.
Competes with Tool service and spare parts (Applied Materials) · Tool service and spare parts (Lam Research) · Instrument refurbishing and calibration (Independent repair houses)
In plain English
Everything MKS ships eventually needs looking after. Gauges drift and must be re-calibrated, laser heads wear out, plating lines need refits — all of it on hardware already bolted into somebody's production line.
So customers keep the relationship open: spare parts, repairs, refurbishment, upgrades and calibration, bought quietly year after year. This is the steady money, $422 million in 2023 to $495 million last year, while the equipment side first fell and then surged. Its share of quarterly sales has slipped lately — not because service shrank, but because everything around it grew faster. Being close to customers is why MKS builds plants where they are.
Atotech General Metal Finishing
Plating chemistry and machines for car trim, fasteners and other metal goods — roughly nine percent of sales. The industrial market it sits inside shrank two years running, and management credits this year's turn to other businesses rather than this one.
Competes with General metal-finishing chemistry (Element Solutions) · Metal-finishing chemistry (Okuno) · Plating and finishing equipment (Almex Technologies)
In plain English
Chrome-bright trim on a car, and the dull grey coating on bolts that stops them rusting: both are metal laid down out of a liquid bath. This is the half of Atotech that serves that world instead of electronics, with the chemistry, the pre-treatment for plastic parts and the machines that run it.
The customers are car-part suppliers and industrial platers, so orders follow how many vehicles and how much durable equipment get built. It is a slower corner of the company — demand dips every Lunar New Year, enough that management guides its whole industrial business around the holiday — and tightening rules on chrome and related chemicals keep pushing customers toward substitutes.
Pressure, Vacuum and Materials Delivery SolutionsGauges, valves and gas-metering devices sold to the firms that build chipmaking machines — the oldest and largest MKS family, roughly a fifth of sales. No single customer reaches a tenth of company revenue. Watch machine orders rather than chip demand.Gauges, valves and gas-metering devices sold to the firms that build chipmaking machines — the oldest and largest MKS family, roughly a fifth of sales. No single customer reaches a tenth of company revenue. Watch machine orders rather than chip demand.
In plain English
Making a computer chip means doing chemistry inside a sealed metal chamber with almost all the air pumped out, then feeding in precise puffs of gas. Somebody has to measure that near-emptiness and meter those gases. That is what these instruments do.
MKS does not sell them to chip plants. It sells them to the companies that build the chamber machines, which design an MKS gauge or gas valve into their tool and order one with every machine they ship. Once a design is signed off, swapping the part means re-testing the whole recipe — so the slot tends to stay put. MKS says its parts sit on machines covering most of the world's chip-equipment spending.
Competes with Vacuum gauges and pressure measurement (INFICON) · Flow and pressure instruments (Brooks Instrument) · Vacuum isolation valves (VAT Group)
Plasma and Reactive Gas ProductsThe boxes that make chemically hungry gas for growing layers and cleaning chambers — roughly eight percent of sales. Management named it first among this year's semiconductor drivers and flagged strong orders for advanced memory work. Watch layering and cleaning steps per chip.The boxes that make chemically hungry gas for growing layers and cleaning chambers — roughly eight percent of sales. Management named it first among this year's semiconductor drivers and flagged strong orders for advanced memory work. Watch layering and cleaning steps per chip.
In plain English
Electricity, pushed hard enough through a gas, tears it into a charged soup that reacts with nearly anything it touches — plasma. MKS builds the units that make it and pipe it where it is wanted: to grow thin layers on a wafer, to strip residue off chamber walls afterwards, or to clean exhaust lines.
Demand follows how many layering and cleaning steps a chip recipe needs, not how many chips get made, which is why management ties it to memory and leading-edge logic capacity. MKS says it is the approved supplier for dissolved-gas work in advanced logic — an approval that is slow to win and slow to lose.
Competes with Remote plasma and power subsystems (Advanced Energy Industries) · Gas analysis and process monitoring (Horiba) · Reactive-gas measurement (INFICON)
Power SolutionsRadio-wave power supplies that energise the charged gas doing the etching — about seven percent of sales. MKS claims a lead in the deepest, narrowest etching; an older outside ranking put Advanced Energy ahead overall. Watch memory-chip upgrade spending.Radio-wave power supplies that energise the charged gas doing the etching — about seven percent of sales. MKS claims a lead in the deepest, narrowest etching; an older outside ranking put Advanced Energy ahead overall. Watch memory-chip upgrade spending.
In plain English
The charged gas that does the etching needs something to energise it, and how hard you push decides how deep and how straight the hole comes out. These are the power units that do the pushing, plus a tuning box that keeps the energy going into the gas instead of bouncing back.
They ship inside the chamber machine, bought by the machine builder rather than the chip plant. MKS says it leads in the hardest version of this — etching holes many times deeper than they are wide — and named upgrades to memory-chip lines as a driver this year. Advanced Energy ranked ahead of MKS in these power units on a ranking built from 2021 data.
Competes with RF power delivery and matching (Advanced Energy Industries) · RF generators and matchboxes (COMET Group)
Atotech Electronics ChemistryThe liquid chemistry that lays metal onto circuit boards and chip packages — about a seventh of sales and the highest-margin line MKS has. Sales rose 21% in the June quarter, and AI-related work is up to roughly 15% of chemistry sales from about 10% a year earlier.The liquid chemistry that lays metal onto circuit boards and chip packages — about a seventh of sales and the highest-margin line MKS has. Sales rose 21% in the June quarter, and AI-related work is up to roughly 15% of chemistry sales from about 10% a year earlier.
In plain English
A circuit board is a stack of thin sheets with metal paths on them and small holes drilled through so the layers can reach each other. Getting metal to grow evenly inside a hole too small to see into is a chemistry problem, and Atotech — the plating-chemistry business MKS bought in 2022 — sells the baths and additives that solve it.
Customers reorder it constantly, because every board that runs through the line uses some up. Sales follow how intricate boards get, not how many gadgets ship, so the line keeps compounding through weak phone and PC years. One input, palladium, is billed straight through at no profit.
Competes with MacDermid Alpha electronics chemistry (Element Solutions) · Electronics plating chemistry (Uyemura) · Electronics plating chemistry (Qnity Electronics)
Atotech Chemistry EquipmentThe plating machines themselves — roughly eight percent of sales, sold at thinner margins on purpose because each line installed pulls years of chemistry orders behind it. Management calls demand the strongest it has ever been, with order visibility into 2027.The plating machines themselves — roughly eight percent of sales, sold at thinner margins on purpose because each line installed pulls years of chemistry orders behind it. Management calls demand the strongest it has ever been, with order visibility into 2027.
In plain English
A plating line is a long row of linked tanks that a board travels through, dipped and rinsed under computer control until the metal sits where it should. MKS builds those lines and the software that runs them.
The machines earn less per dollar than the chemistry does, and that is deliberate: whoever sold the line usually supplies the liquid that flows through it, so a line placed today is chemistry orders for years afterwards. Board and chip-package plants adding capacity for AI servers are the buyers. MKS is doubling its Guangzhou machine plant — a $25 million project aimed at late 2027 — to keep up with the orders.
Competes with PCB and plating line equipment (Schmid Group) · Plating line equipment (Process Automation International) · MacDermid Alpha equipment-plus-chemistry bundles (Element Solutions)
Photonics and Optics — Newport, Ophir, Spectra-PhysicsLasers, optics and precision stages sold to makers of the machines that print and inspect chip patterns, plus research labs and defence buyers — roughly a seventh of sales. Management says it is gaining ground with pattern-printing and inspection tool makers.Lasers, optics and precision stages sold to makers of the machines that print and inspect chip patterns, plus research labs and defence buyers — roughly a seventh of sales. Management says it is gaining ground with pattern-printing and inspection tool makers.
In plain English
Three old names sit here: Spectra-Physics lasers, Newport optics and stages, Ophir infrared lenses and beam meters. Between them they make light, steer it, hold the parts still enough to matter, and measure what came out the other end.
The buyers are companies building the machines that print circuit patterns onto wafers and then check the result, along with research labs and defence programmes wanting infrared optics. A machine builder designs in a particular lens or laser and reorders it with each build. On the industrial side, management pointed to data-communications equipment and defence as what turned that market back up this year.
Competes with Industrial and ultrafast lasers (Coherent Corp.) · Fiber lasers (IPG Photonics) · Photonics components and instruments (Thorlabs) · Precision motion and positioning (PI miCos)
ESI Laser Systems for PCB DrillingMachines that punch the tiny holes through circuit boards with laser pulses — roughly five percent of sales. Written down in 2023, so the recovery runs off a low base. Bendable-board demand was strong in the June quarter, with a seasonal lull guided for autumn.Machines that punch the tiny holes through circuit boards with laser pulses — roughly five percent of sales. Written down in 2023, so the recovery runs off a low base. Bendable-board demand was strong in the June quarter, with a seasonal lull guided for autumn.
In plain English
Every hole through a circuit board has to be made somehow, and at this size a drill bit is no use — you burn through with pulses of laser light instead. ESI, a brand MKS bought in 2019, builds the machines that do it, for bendable circuits and rigid boards alike.
These are one-off purchases: a board plant signs a large cheque, takes delivery, and nothing more arrives until the next machine. The business was written down heavily in 2023, so today's growth starts from a small base. Bendable-board customers bought well in the June quarter, with management flagging a seasonal lull in those machines next quarter; rigid-board interest is picking up on running costs.
Competes with Laser via-drilling systems (Via Mechanics) · Laser drilling tools (Mitsubishi Electric) · Laser drilling systems (EO Technics)
MKS Global ServiceSpares, repairs, calibration and upgrades on hardware already installed in customers' factories — $495M in 2025, the one piece MKS reports exactly. Its job is to grow steadily while the equipment side swings.Spares, repairs, calibration and upgrades on hardware already installed in customers' factories — $495M in 2025, the one piece MKS reports exactly. Its job is to grow steadily while the equipment side swings.
In plain English
Everything MKS ships eventually needs looking after. Gauges drift and must be re-calibrated, laser heads wear out, plating lines need refits — all of it on hardware already bolted into somebody's production line.
So customers keep the relationship open: spare parts, repairs, refurbishment, upgrades and calibration, bought quietly year after year. This is the steady money, $422 million in 2023 to $495 million last year, while the equipment side first fell and then surged. Its share of quarterly sales has slipped lately — not because service shrank, but because everything around it grew faster. Being close to customers is why MKS builds plants where they are.
Competes with Tool service and spare parts (Applied Materials) · Tool service and spare parts (Lam Research) · Instrument refurbishing and calibration (Independent repair houses)
Atotech General Metal FinishingPlating chemistry and machines for car trim, fasteners and other metal goods — roughly nine percent of sales. The industrial market it sits inside shrank two years running, and management credits this year's turn to other businesses rather than this one.Plating chemistry and machines for car trim, fasteners and other metal goods — roughly nine percent of sales. The industrial market it sits inside shrank two years running, and management credits this year's turn to other businesses rather than this one.
In plain English
Chrome-bright trim on a car, and the dull grey coating on bolts that stops them rusting: both are metal laid down out of a liquid bath. This is the half of Atotech that serves that world instead of electronics, with the chemistry, the pre-treatment for plastic parts and the machines that run it.
The customers are car-part suppliers and industrial platers, so orders follow how many vehicles and how much durable equipment get built. It is a slower corner of the company — demand dips every Lunar New Year, enough that management guides its whole industrial business around the holiday — and tightening rules on chrome and related chemicals keep pushing customers toward substitutes.
Competes with General metal-finishing chemistry (Element Solutions) · Metal-finishing chemistry (Okuno) · Plating and finishing equipment (Almex Technologies)
Named in filings, launches and programs
- Baratron capacitance manometersProduct lineThe pressure gauges from the oldest MKS franchise, still designed into etch and deposition chambers, where swapping in a replacement means costly re-testing.
- Granville-Phillips vacuum gaugesBrandA gauge brand for measuring how little air is left in a chamber, sold alongside the MKS pressure instruments it complements.
- Automation, Control & Sensing SolutionsProduct lineControllers, input-output devices and factory software that tie MKS hardware into a customer's production line; part of the vacuum business, not a separate one.
- Dissolved Gas SolutionsProduct line · RampingGas-in-liquid systems where MKS says it is the approved supplier for advanced logic chips, with a design win named this year.
- Newport opto-mechanics and motionBrandOptical tables, mounts and positioning stages that move parts in tiny repeatable steps; sold to research labs and machine builders.
- Ophir infrared optics and beam measurementBrandInfrared lenses, including zoom lenses bought by defence customers, plus instruments that measure a laser beam's power and shape.
- Spectra-Physics lasersBrandThe laser brand inside the photonics business, including lasers firing in extremely short bursts, used in chip-packaging work.
- Zhen Ding Technology GroupCustomer programA circuit-board maker buying from two MKS divisions; it handed MKS service and technology awards in August 2026.
- MKS Supercenter Factory, PenangPlatform · RampingA 17-acre Malaysian plant for chipmaking-tool parts, opened June 2026; filling out the rest of it is what management's capacity claims rest on.
- Atotech Guangzhou equipment factory expansionPlatform · AnnouncedA project to double plating-machine capacity at the Guangzhou plant in China, targeted for late 2027 and announced as machine orders climbed.
Baratron capacitance manometersProduct line
The pressure gauges from the oldest MKS franchise, still designed into etch and deposition chambers, where swapping in a replacement means costly re-testing.
Granville-Phillips vacuum gaugesBrand
A gauge brand for measuring how little air is left in a chamber, sold alongside the MKS pressure instruments it complements.
Automation, Control & Sensing SolutionsProduct line
Controllers, input-output devices and factory software that tie MKS hardware into a customer's production line; part of the vacuum business, not a separate one.
Dissolved Gas SolutionsProduct line · Ramping
Gas-in-liquid systems where MKS says it is the approved supplier for advanced logic chips, with a design win named this year.
Newport opto-mechanics and motionBrand
Optical tables, mounts and positioning stages that move parts in tiny repeatable steps; sold to research labs and machine builders.
Ophir infrared optics and beam measurementBrand
Infrared lenses, including zoom lenses bought by defence customers, plus instruments that measure a laser beam's power and shape.
Spectra-Physics lasersBrand
The laser brand inside the photonics business, including lasers firing in extremely short bursts, used in chip-packaging work.
Zhen Ding Technology GroupCustomer program
A circuit-board maker buying from two MKS divisions; it handed MKS service and technology awards in August 2026.
MKS Supercenter Factory, PenangPlatform · Ramping
A 17-acre Malaysian plant for chipmaking-tool parts, opened June 2026; filling out the rest of it is what management's capacity claims rest on.
Atotech Guangzhou equipment factory expansionPlatform · Announced
A project to double plating-machine capacity at the Guangzhou plant in China, targeted for late 2027 and announced as machine orders climbed.