Intel Corporation announced today that it has agreed to sell approximately 20% of its IMS Nanofabrication GmbH (“IMS”) business to Bain Capital Special Situations (“Bain Capital”) in a transaction valuing IMS at approximately $4.3 billion.
The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2023. IMS will operate as an independent subsidiary and will continue to be led by CEO Dr. Elmar Platzgummer.
An Intel representative stated: “Given the valuation and the level of investment, this will be one of our best acquisitions ever”.
Headquartered in Vienna, Austria, IMS has been the industry leader in multi-beam mask writing for advanced technology nodes since inventing multi-electron beam technology and introducing the first commercial multi-beam mask writer in 2015. Intel first invested in IMS in 2009 and ultimately acquired the business in 2015. Since the acquisition, IMS has delivered a significant return on investment for Intel while quadrupling its employees and production capacity and delivering three additional generations of products.
Today, with the widespread adoption of EUV technology in cutting-edge technology, multi-beam mask writing tools required to create advanced EUV (Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography) masks have become an increasingly important part of the semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem. This investment will enable IMS to seize important market opportunities for multi-beam mask writing tools by accelerating innovation and enabling deeper cross-industry collaboration.
“Advancements in lithography are critical to driving the semiconductor industry’s continued progress, and mask writing plays a central role in the industry’s transition to new patterning technologies such as High-NA EUV,” said Matt Poirier, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Intel. “Bain Capital’s investment and partnership will provide IMS with greater independence and bring a strategic perspective to help accelerate the next phase of lithography innovation, ultimately benefiting the entire ecosystem”.
Platzgummer said: “We are very pleased to have Bain Capital as a valuable partner with a long history of working with companies to drive growth and create value. They share our belief that IMS has meaningful opportunities as EUV becomes more prevalent and efficient and High-NA EUV moves from development to high-volume manufacturing in the second half of this decade. We look forward to expanding our capabilities to support the world’s largest chip producers, who rely on our technology to produce current and next-generation semiconductor products”.
Marvin Larbi-Yeboa, a partner at Bain Capital, said: “As a global leader and innovator in emerging technologies in the semiconductor manufacturing and nanotechnology industries, we believe IMS is well-positioned to capitalize on the attractive long-term tailwinds brought about by increasing chip capacity coming online and to build on its leading competitive position, technology differentiation, and cutting-edge product capabilities”.
Will Tetler, a managing director at Bain Capital, added: “We look forward to partnering with IMS’s exceptional management team and Intel to leverage our deep industry experience and value creation capabilities to support the business’s long-term growth strategy through further investments in its leading technology and product portfolio, enabling IMS to expand its competitive market position”.