In 1984, the Semiconductor Equipment Department was newly established as a division in line with the expansion of deliveries of semiconductor manufacturing equipment manufactured at the Naka Works (now Hitachi High-Tech) of Hitachi, Ltd. The S-6000 was released in 1984, and in 1995, with the expansion of sales of the S-8800 series to semiconductor customers, it was transferred from the Electrical Equipment Department to the Semiconductor Equipment Department.
In 2004, Hitachi Electronics Engineering became a group company, and the service for optical inspection equipment was transferred, and the "Semiconductor Equipment Department 3" was newly established. In 2005, the company divided its products into manufacturing equipment and evaluation equipment, and changed the names of its electronic evaluation equipment, such as length measurement SEMs and review SEMs, to "Semiconductor Evaluation Equipment Part 1", and its optical inspection equipment, "Semiconductor Equipment Part 3", to "Semiconductor Evaluation Equipment Part 2", creating a system that matched the product groups.
In 2010, the two departments were merged to reflect market trends, and the company is now engaged in the installation, maintenance services, and solution business for electronic and optical equipment as the Semiconductor Evaluation Equipment Department (name changed to Process Control Systems Dept. in 2019).
In 2014, a new evaluation coordinator group was established within the department (integrated into the Customer Success Dept. in 2024), and we are working with Hitachi High-Tech to promote solutions that meet customer needs.
In 2016, the company established a new Process Control Systems Refurbish Group, and worked to strengthen its system for outsourcing repairs and exchange business.
In 2020, the Evaluation Overseas Parts Group was newly established, and synergy effects were achieved through collaboration with domestic services. (In 2024, the Evaluation Overseas Parts Group was integrated into the Global Parts Department.

In the early 1980s, the design rule for semiconductor devices was around 100nm, and the light source for exposure equipment was mainly g-line. The light source progressed to i-line, KrF, and ArF, and by around 2005, the design rule had evolved to 10nm or less.
In recent years, with the steady expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT), in which all kinds of things, including industrial equipment, home appliances, and automobiles, are connected to the Internet, in addition to PCs and smartphones, there is a need for a variety of semiconductor devices, such as edge devices that acquire information, such as sensors, and high-performance devices for servers and data centers that store and process large amounts of collected data.
In order to achieve stable mass production of these devices, it is necessary to be able to quickly detect abnormalities in the manufacturing equipment and processes that can cause defects. To meet this need, the GT2000 length measurement device, the DI4600 dark-field wafer defect inspection device, and the LS9600 wafer surface inspection device have been added to the lineup of the latest devices.

In semiconductor device manufacturing lines, stable operation of the equipment has an impact on the number of processed products. Many of the current electronic and optical devices have been in operation for 10 years since delivery, and are now approaching the end of the manufacturer's maintenance period, but there is a strong demand to maintain the operation of the devices that are the mainstay of the customer's manufacturing line. We have concluded equipment maintenance support contracts and are working to maintain equipment operation, but from fiscal 2023 we have also started offering ultra-long-term maintenance support contracts that review work and parts costs in response to the need for even longer-term operation.
In addition, as new initiatives, we are promoting measures to extend the life of long-term operation equipment using a hot standby system, and replacing complete electron guns to shorten the period of suspension for comprehensive maintenance of the CV5020.

From 2023, we established an installation team within the Refurbishment Group and dedicated it to installation work at our bases, but in order to further strengthen our capabilities, we plan to build a system for highly efficient operations by making the bases dedicated to service sales and the department dedicated to training instructors (two-year rotation plan).

As many of the new devices are shipped overseas rather than domestically, we are continuing to develop shifts and rotations through overseas secondments in order to provide worldwide service support, such as overseas installation and work support, and to strengthen our overseas personnel. In addition, in order to standardize the quality of worldwide services, we are working with Hitachi High-Tech related departments to develop preventive maintenance and solution know-how in the evaluation device department overseas.