CAMT vs NVMI vs ONTO: The Chip Packaging Arms Race

While Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company [TSM] and Intel [INTC] grab headlines for packaging capacity, three companies you’ve probably never heard of control a major portion of the inspection equipment market that makes advanced packaging possible – and their backlogs now stretch into 2027.

From foundry to data centre, the chips powering the artificial intelligence (AI) boom go through several stages to eliminate defects and optimise wafers for advanced computing purposes. Advanced packaging – which combines multiple dies, HBM stacks, fine-pitch bumps and increasingly sophisticated interconnects – has become a major strategic battleground as AI drives demand for more efficient, faster and less-traditional semiconductor designs. 

The backdrop is unusually strong. Bloomberg Intelligence estimates 2.5D/3D packaging will grow at a 37% CAGR from 2025 to 2030, versus roughly 10% for the semiconductor industry overall. As chipmakers push more computing and memory into each package, inspection and metrology become less optional: they are what tells manufacturers whether an expensive stack is actually good enough to enter the next stage of production.

Three companies sit near the centre of this node of the AI semiconductor supply chain: Camtek [CAMT], Onto Innovation [ONTO], and Nova [NVMI]. Here, we take a closer look at these three ‘picks and shovels’ plays and examine their latest financial performance, as well as the technology and valuation questions facing each.

Camtek: The pure-play packaging pick

Israel-based Camtek provides 2D and 3D inspection and metrology services across advanced packaging, with applications including bump height, die-stack planarity, redistribution-layer dimensions and surface defects.

On 10 August, Camtek reported Q2 2026 record revenue of $133.2m, up 8.03% year-on-year and 9.45% sequentially. Non-GAAP operating margin was 27%, up sequentially from 25.5% in Q1 but down from the 30.3% recorded in the year-ago quarter. The numbers look set to move even more impressively in the coming quarters. The company said year-to-date orders had exceeded $600m, with deliveries scheduled through the remainder of 2026 and into 2027. Management expects Q3 revenue of $158m-160m and more than 30% growth in second-half revenue versus the first half.

Advanced packaging is the key. Some 75% of Q2 2026 revenue derived from advanced packaging applications for AI products, and management expects advanced packaging revenue to rise about 70% between Q1 and Q4 2026. In June it won a $55m multi-system order from a leading OSAT, in addition to orders worth over $50m for its Hawk systems from a leading HBM player, both to support AI applications.

In the press release, Camtek CEO Rafi Amit highlighted the deals as “a great example of the two themes we have stressed in previous announcements: one is the strengthening of the OSAT business with respect to the 2.5D and 3D AI related devices and the other is the superior capabilities of the Hawk to meet the most demanding requirements of HBM manufacturing,” underlining that “these orders provide further indication for continued strong business momentum into 2027.”

As of 29 September, CAMT shares were up 43.7% in the year to date, though they were down 27.3% from an all-time high of $210.20 recorded on 24 April. 

Nova: The metrology pick

Nova occupies a slightly different position than Camtek and Onto. Rather than focusing primarily on defect inspection, the Israeli company specialises in metrology – measuring dimensions, films and materials so manufacturers can control increasingly difficult semiconductor processes.

That makes advanced packaging one of several growth engines rather than the whole story. The transition to more advanced chip designs, such as Gate-All-Around logic architecture, increased the “metrology intensity” for chips – the importance of atomic-level precision in measurement processes – driving demand for Nova’s solutions. In Q2 2026, Nova generated record revenue of $255m, up 16% y/y and 8% sequentially. GAAP net income reached $75m, while gross margin was 56.5%, compared with 57.8% in Q2 2025.

Advanced packaging contributed nearly one-quarter of product revenue, according to management, and advanced-logic revenue more than doubled sequentially. In July, its WMC platform was selected as a tool of record by an unnamed leading global foundry for multiple-layer measurement in advanced packaging production flows. Management also said WMC adoption was accelerating across memory and foundry customers and that customer roadmaps were providing visibility into 2027. For Q3, management forecast revenue in the $277m-287m range. 

As of the 29 September close, NVMI shares traded at $385.12, up 17.28% in the year to date but down 37.48% from the heady all-time high of $615.99 recorded on 15 June. 

Onto Innovation: The process control pick

Onto Innovation is the most diversified of the three and increasingly the company with the widest set of tools around advanced packaging. Its portfolio spans inspection, metrology, lithography and software, with Dragonfly G5 targeting advanced packaging and HBM applications and JetStep addressing panel-level packaging.

Q2 figures reflected the benefits of this broad portfolio. Revenue reached a record $343m, up 35.3% y/y and nearly 18% sequentially, driven by a sequential 50% jump in revenue from advanced nodes, and record revenue from advanced packaging and specialty devices. Gross margin was 53.4% on a GAAP basis, up from 48.2% a year ago. Backlog exceeded $1bn for the first time, with management saying roughly 60-70% was tied to 2026 and 30-40% to 2027.

Management expects advanced packaging to grow about 80% in 2026 and said the growth is broadly split between HBM memory and 2.5D logic. That breadth matters because it makes Onto less dependent on a single packaging architecture. The company expects a strong Q3, with revenue of $380m-400m. 

The company is also building optionality beyond optical inspection. In August, Onto completed a $720m investment for a 27% stake in Japan’s Rigaku [RGAKF]. The deal is intended to advance X-ray-based process control, which could become increasingly important as packages move toward deeper structures, new materials and more complex 3D architectures.

The ONTO share price rose sharply after earnings, and though gains have been pared back since then, the stock remains up 93.01% in the year to date. 

Three ways to play the packaging arms race

This is how the three stocks currently compare.

Source: Yahoo Finance

Despite the overlap in their portfolios, Camtek, Nova and Onto are not interchangeable. Camtek is the most concentrated packaging-inspection story; Nova is a metrology specialist with exposure to both front-end device fabrication and packaging; Onto spans inspection, metrology and lithography across a broader process-control platform.

What they do share is the same structural tailwind: packaging is becoming a bigger part of semiconductor performance, while every increase in package complexity creates another need for measurement and inspection. Increasingly complex chip architecture and the rapid growth of 2.5D/3D packaging represent a greater tailwind for these companies than the headline growth of semiconductor units alone.

The stock market is already distinguishing between the three, as is evident in their fundamentals. The differences are less about whether AI is driving packaging demand and more about how much of that demand each company can capture, how diversified the revenue base is and whether margins can keep pace with growth.

The biggest question for investors may be whether the current order visibility represents a normal semiconductor-equipment upcycle or a more durable shift in the manufacturing economics of AI chips. Onto’s record backlog and Camtek’s order intake already covering shipments into 2027 suggest that customers are committing earlier than in a typical cycle. Nova is also reporting growing visibility from foundry and memory roadmaps.

For now, the equipment layer looks like one of the less flashy beneficiaries of the packaging arms race. The foundries may build the factories and the chip designers may capture the headlines, but Camtek, Nova and Onto are selling the tools that help determine whether those increasingly expensive packages actually work.