Etch systems (Akara, Kiyo)

Plasma etch tools that cut the patterns for transistors, memory cells and interconnects. Akara succeeds the Kiyo conductor etch line, introduced in 2004, which Lam says has more than 30,000 chambers in production. Lam does not report revenue by product, so the KPIs below are for all systems.

Why it matters to the stock. Etch is one of the largest and most technically demanding steps in advanced chipmaking, and each new device generation adds more etch steps. Lam's share of this step drives much of its systems revenue, so a trader watches it through overall systems revenue.