The market for refurbished, second-hand semiconductor manufacturing equipment has traditionally been a difficult one to gauge, typically operating in semi-secrecy. Neither the vendors who sell used equipment nor the companies that buy it have typically been anxious to publicize transactions. Buying second-hand gear has been considered unglamorous at best, unsavory at worst. But this negative connotation may be going away, according to insiders, who say the glut of used equipment thrown onto the market as a result of the downturn has made buyers of companies who once shied away from second-hand gear.

"Customers are seeing they can get a lot more for less money. That's always an attractive proposal to anyone," said Byron Exarcos, president of reconditioned equipment vendor ClassOne Equipment Inc. "I see big growth even as the economy recovers."

ClassOne is an Atlanta-based refurbished chip and nanotechnology equipment supplier that buys and sells used gear for thin-film measurement, surface metrology, defect inspection, probing and other applications. According to Exarcos, the emergence of companies like ClassOne are also making the purchase of reconditioned equipment more palatable to chip manufacturers because they stand behind the tools they sell with service, spares, a three-month warranty and 30-day right of return.

Last month, ClassOne announced it was making an aggressive push in to the market for used equipment made by KLA-Tencor Corp. The company opened a Silicon Valley office and hired Fred Kelley, a former business development manager from KLA-Tencor's used equipment division, to head sales efforts in the U.S. and Asia.

Mainstream equipment vendors that have divisions focused on selling refurbished gear aren't anxious to publicize used equipment sales because their marketing efforts are focused on pushing their latest and greatest technology. Few analysts follow the used equipment market, and even those that do acknowledge that it's difficult to track. But those analysts who do track the market for refurbished equipment forecast that it will rise significantly in 2010 after a down year in 2009.

By: DocMemory
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