The Bundeskartellamt has cleared the planned merger between KLA-Tencor Corporation, Milpitas, USA, and Lam Research Corporation, Fremont, USA. Both parties to the merger are internationally active producers of equipment for the manufacture of semiconductors (chips). As the companies also generate turnover in Germany, they had to notify the merger to the Bundeskartellamt. The merger project is currently also being examined by the competition authorities in the USA, Japan, Korea and China. It has already been cleared in Israel, Ireland and Taiwan.

Andreas Mundt, President of the Bundeskartellamt: "Both companies are strong suppliers of equipment for the manufacture of semiconductors. This includes different and very sophisticated types of equipment, each of which covers a specific stage in the manufacture of semiconductors. Our investigations showed that the companies produce very different types of equipment and are therefore not in direct competition with one another. Furthermore, among their customers are several large international companies with significant buyer power, which will continue to limit the scope of action of the parties after the merger."

In 2013 / 2014 the Bundeskartellamt had already conducted extensive market surveys in the sector to examine the planned merger between Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron (see press release of 13.11.2014). The additional investigations in the present case have again shown that, as in chip production itself, the upstream production of semiconductor equipment is characterised by constant technological change. The Bundeskartellamt has therefore also examined whether the merger project could hinder innovation. In view of the competitive situation in this highly dynamic sector, this is not to be expected. Although only a few companies play a leading R&D role in the production of the diverse new types of equipment, they still exert competitive pressure on one another despite their different areas of specialisation.