8% of front-end equipment revenue came from copper tools in 2005

Despite a substantial and growing portion of the world's semiconductor manufacturing capacity located in Asia, US and European IC manufacturers are driving the market for front-end equipment tools for copper processing of IC interconnects, according to The Information Network. Worldwide, copper tools represented 7% of the total front-end equipment revenues in 2004, growing to 8% in 2005 and further to 15% in 2008.