KLA Corporation makes process control, yield management, and inspection systems for semiconductor manufacturing. Its products—wafer defect inspection tools, pattern overlay measurement systems, and process control software—are used at every major step in chip fabrication to identify defects, measure alignment, and ensure the chip being built matches design intent. Every major foundry and memory manufacturer runs KLA equipment throughout production lines.

Manufacturing AI chips at 3nm and below makes process control more important and more technically demanding than at any prior node. Transistor geometries are now so small that minor process variations cause defects that would not exist at larger nodes, and the number of process steps required to build a leading-edge chip has grown substantially. The advanced packaging used to assemble AI chips—connecting multiple dies and HBM stacks on an interposer—adds further process control requirements at the assembly stage.

KLA's non-China revenue grew approximately 40% YoY in 2025, driven by capital expenditure increases at TSMC, Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron as those companies expanded AI chip and HBM production capacity. KLA launched new inspection tools with AI-based defect classification, improving the speed and accuracy of defect detection on complex multi-layer chip structures. Process control spending typically scales proportionally with overall fab capital expenditure, giving KLA a predictable share of the AI chip manufacturing investment.