For the third straight year, the worldwide survey showed the number of American suppliers dropping in the five equipment segments of VLSI Research's "10 Best Companies" report, which was recently released by the San Jose research firm. Meanwhile, the number of European-based equipment suppliers grew in the new rankings, reaching 28% of the companies listed in this year's report vs. 23% in 1999.

In fact, all of the newcomers in VLSI Research's 12th annual ranking of customer satisfaction were based in Europe. Oxford Instruments Ltd. of Highwaycombe, England, appeared for the first time in the list at the top position in the small suppliers segment for wafer-processing systems (companies with less than $300 million annual revenues). The U.K.-based supplier of analysts and measurement systems had an overall rating of 8.17 out of a total of 10 points.

European suppliers held 13 of the total 46 positions in the rankings, compared to 11 out of 47 last year. VLSI Research said it mailed out 45,098 questionnaires for this year in six languages--English, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, German, and French. A total of 2,168 were returned and 2,047 were used in the survey.

"Custom satisfaction is an issue that's close to the hearts of European suppliers," said analyst Risto Puhakka, vice president of research operations at VLSI Research, which tracks semiconductor production tool markets. He agreed with the general perception that European vendors often must try harder to win business because most of their major customers are located in other geographic regions around the world.

The number of U.S.-based companies in VLSI Research's 2000 "10 best" rankings dropped to 21, or 46% of the companies listed. In 1999, U.S. companies occupied 24 out of 47 positions in the rankings, or 51%, said VLSI Research. Japanese suppliers remained at the same level in the rankings with 26%, or 12 companies, in the five equipment segments, of the report.

To ranking suppliers, VLSI Research asked managers and "decision makers" at chip companies around the world to rate equipment suppliers in eight categories--tool performance, uptime, software, quality, process support, technical leadership, support after sales, and overall commitment to supporting customers' needs. Equipment vendors are placed into five segments: large suppliers of wafer-processing systems (annual sales over $300 million); small suppliers of wafer-processing tools; test & material handling equipment; process diagnostic systems; and assembly & specialty equipment.

Contrary to the belief that bigger is better, the survey showed small suppliers of wafer processing system had the edge in customer satisfaction over larger competitors. The "10 best: vendors in the small supplier group increase their average rating to 7.83, up 0.47 from 1999. This also was the only group where the average ratings increased in all eight categories, said VLSI Research. This group received highest ratings for quality-of-results and product performance.

Making the "10 best" listing for small suppliers of wafer-processing tools were: Oxford Instruments (8.17); Tegal (8.04); Karl Suss (8.03); SEZ (7.98); Steag Electronics Systems (7.95); CFM Technologies (7.93); Ulvac Japan (7.54); Ultratech Stepper (7.53); Kokusai Electric (7.51); and Plasma-Therm (7.49).

In the group of large suppliers of wafer-processing systems, vendors saw their average rating slip by 0.06 to 7.77. The large suppliers received high marks in the "quality-of-results" category, but software remained an area for the most improvement, according to the survey.

Making the "10 best" list for suppliers of large wafer processing were: Varian Semiconductor (8.66); ASM Lithography (8.27); Dainippon Screen Manufacturing (7.83); Tokyo Electron (7.67); Canon (7.51); Novellus (7.39); Nikon (7.33); Eaton (7.23); Applied Materials (6.99); and Silicon Valley Group (6.89).

In the test and materials handling equipment segment, the top 10 suppliers received an overall average rating of 7.75, a decline of 0.16 from last year. Suppliers got their highest marks for quality-of-results, uptime, and product performance categories, but software remained the lowest rated category despite an improvement of 0.05 from last year.

The "10 best" in the test and materials handling segment were: Integrated Measurement Systems (8.84); Karl Suss (8.84); SZ Testsysteme (8.23); Tokyo Electron (8.00); Tokyo Seimitsu (8.00); Electroglas (7.84); Teradyne (7.54); Agilent Technologies (7.43); TMT (7.26); and Advantest (7.16).

The average score of process diagnostic equipment suppliers also dipped slightly by 0.05 to 7.23 in this year's survey. VLSI Research said the highest ratings were achieved in uptime, quality-of-results, and product performance categories. Only six companies were listed this year in this group because of insufficient qualifying returns in the survey, said the San Jose research firm.

Topping the ranking for process diagnostic equipment were: Agilent (8.29); Rudolph Technologies (8.07); Hitachi (7.61); Schlumberger Semiconductor Solutions (7.55); KLA-Tencor (6.74); and Therma-Wave (6.54).

European suppliers continued to have a strong presence in the assembly and specialty equipment segment of VLSI Research's survey--six out of the 10 companies are based in Europe in this top listing. The research firm said this group did a "remarkable join in this year's challenging environment, where demand for equipment has expanded rapidly." The highest rankings in this segment were achieved in the quality-of-results, product performance and uptime categories, according to VLSI Research.

Making the "10 best" in the assembly and specialty segment were: Orthodyne Electronics (8.94); Alphasem (8.79); ASM International (8.31); ESEC (8.27); DISCO (7.90); ICOS Vision Systems (7.83); Kulicke & Soffa (7.67); Datacon (7.51); Shinkawa (7.43); and F&K Delvotec Bondtechnik (7.16).