Ebara Corporation: What Ebara Technologies Makes for Chip Fabs

Ebara is a Japanese engineering firm known for industrial pumps, and also the second-largest maker of the CMP systems and dry vacuum pumps semiconductor fabs run on. Here is what Ebara Technologies makes and which fabs depend on it.

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Aug 9, 2026 · 2 min read

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Ebara Corporation has spent over a century building pumps, the kind that move water through cities and wastewater through treatment plants. Less visibly, it is one of the two biggest suppliers of chemical-mechanical polishing systems for semiconductor fabs. It also makes the dry vacuum pumps and gas-abatement equipment that keep those fabs running.

The short answer

Ebara sits in two industries at once:

• Chip equipment: dry vacuum pumps, gas-abatement systems, and chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) tools, where it ranks second globally.
• Customers: over 80% of the top-20 chipmakers run Ebara equipment, including TSMC, Samsung, Intel, and SK hynix.
• Its own suppliers: Nidec supplies the precision motors driving Ebara's pumps, and NSK supplies the bearings that keep them running at high speed.

The full interactive map is on Ebara's supply chain page.

What do CMP tools and vacuum pumps do in a fab?

Chipmaking builds a wafer layer by layer, and each layer needs to be polished flat before the next one goes on. That's chemical-mechanical polishing, and Ebara is the second-largest supplier of the systems that do it, behind only Applied Materials. Dry vacuum pumps do a different job. They pull process gases out of the chamber during each fabrication step, and they have to run continuously and reliably, or the whole line stops.

Who runs Ebara equipment

Ebara's customer list covers the top of the chip industry. TSMC runs Ebara vacuum pumps and CMP tools across its leading-edge fabs, and Samsung Electronics does the same across its memory and foundry lines. Intel uses Ebara equipment in its own fabs, and SK hynix deploys Ebara pumps in its DRAM, NAND, and HBM production. Even Tokyo Electron, itself a major equipment maker, builds Ebara vacuum pumps into its own process tools, so Ebara sells to fabs both directly and through another supplier.

What keeps Ebara's own equipment running

Ebara doesn't make everything inside its pumps. Nidec, the Japanese motor specialist, supplies the precision electric motors that drive Ebara's rotating machinery, and NSK makes the high-precision bearings that let those pumps and spindles spin at the speeds a fab needs.

See it for yourself

Nearly every advanced chip made today has passed through Ebara equipment, and most people have never heard of the company. The full breakdown, with live tickers for every company involved, is on Ebara's supply chain map.