Jan. 24, 2008 - Rudolph Technologies has acquired all IP and selected assets from privately held RVSI Inspection in Hauppauge, NY, in a move to add the firm's flagship 3D wafer inspection to its own 2D macrodefect inspection technologies, and strengthen its presence in advanced packaging applications.

The RVSI business will be folded into Rudolph's inspection business; a technology center for RVSI's wafer scanner products will remain in Hauppauge, NY, but manufacturing activities will transfer to Rudolph's inspection business unit in Bloomington, MN.

Paul McLaughlin, chairman/CEO of Rudolph, said in a statement that the RVSI purchase, plus the recent acquisition of Applied Precision's probe card test/analysis business, will help push the company's position as a top supplier of inspection/metrology technologies for backend applications. The companies cited data from TechSearch International that demand for solder bumped wafers (200mm equivalent) will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 27% from 2007-2010.

RVSI's WS-3800 3D bumped wafer inspection system "is the perfect complement" to Rudolph's NSX 2D system, together offering "a comprehensive solution for both 2D and 3D inspection," McLaughlin noted, adding that the two businesses have "a high level of customer overlap."

RVSI's assets had previously been sold off to investment firm Ancora Management in early 2005, several months after the metrology company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.