Verigy


Verigy Ltd is an Advantest Group company in the semiconductor automatic test equipment business. The company existed as a business within Hewlett Packard before it was spun off in 2006 as a standalone company. In 2010, Verigy was in the process of merging with LTX-Credence and on December 7, 2010 Advantest Japan made an all-cash offer for the company. On July 4, 2011, after two reviews of the transaction by the Department of Justice the company announced that Advantest Corporation completed its acquisition of Verigy in an all-cash deal valued at $1.100 billion. The resulting company is the largest manufacturer of semiconductor test equipment in the world.

History

Verigy was started by Hewlett Packard, reported to David Packard in the early days and spun off from Agilent Technologies in 2006. The company went public on the NASDAQ in June 2006. The CEO was Keith Barnes, who later became Chairman and CEO. The CFO was Bob Nikl. In 2011 Mr. Barnes moved to Chairman of the Board of Directors and Jorge Titinger became CEO and President. The company's NASDAQ symbol was VRGY.
Verigy designs, develops, manufactures, sells and services advanced semiconductor test systems for the flash memory, high-speed memory and system-on-chip markets. Verigy's products are used worldwide in design validation, characterization, and high-volume manufacturing test. The company began doing business as Verigy on June 1, 2006 with its global headquarters located in Singapore.
On December 6, 2007 Verigy announced the acquisition of Inovys, a privately held company that provides stuff for design debug, failure analysis and yield acceleration for complex semiconductor devices and processes.
On June 15, 2009 Verigy acquired Touchdown Technologies, a privately held company that designs, manufactures, and supports advanced Microelectromechanical systems probe cards to support the wafer test needs of semiconductor manufacturers worldwide.
On November 18, 2010 Verigy announced its intent to merge with LTX-Credence.
Advantest announced that it planned to acquire Verigy in March 2011, topping LTX-Credence's bid.
On July 4, 2011 Verigy announced that Advantest Corporation completed its acquisition of Verigy in an all-cash transaction, estimated to be approximately $1.1 billion. Trading of Verigy ordinary shares has been suspended subsequently

Products

The main test system platforms offered by Verigy are:
In addition it offers software for design debug, failure analysis and yield acceleration.

Market listing

Verigy announced its initial public offering of 8.5 million shares of common stock on 2006-06-13, priced at $15.00 per share, and is listed on the NASDAQ National Market under the ticker symbol VRGY. Agilent spun off the remaining Verigy stock to its shareholders on 2006-11-01.

Competition

Verigy's principal competitors in the ATE business are: