Getting your
Trinity Audioplayer ready...One of the world’s largest providers of equipment and services for making computer chips quietly acquired Solano County-based X-ray technology company Sigray Inc.
“We believe their innovative X-ray technology complements and strengthens the capabilities of our Imaging and Process Control portfolio, and we are excited to have the Sigray team in Benicia as part of Applied Materials,” spokesperson Ricky Gradwohl said in an email, confirming why Sigray now describes itself as “an Applied Materials company.” The deal was completed in February for an undisclosed amount.
Santa Clara-based Applied Materials, with $28.4 billion in revenue last fiscal year, is one of a few top players in fabrication equipment and services for semiconductor chips and advanced displays.
Sigray co-founders Wenbing Yun and Sylvia Lewis remain with the business, and the company is part of Applied Materials’ Imaging and Process Control group, Gradwohl said. He didn’t specify their roles or what other changes have followed the acquisition.
Sigray moved early last year from four buildings in Concord into a leased 64,000-square-foot former Bio-Rad Laboratories research-and-development facility at 5500 E. Second St. in Benicia, the Journal reported. At the time, the company employed about 100 people and said the consolidated operation would support its expansion.
Sigray develops laboratory X-ray instruments used in biomedical research, semiconductor metrology, green-energy technology and other industrial applications. Its advanced X-ray microscopes strengthen the inspection and measurement side of Applied’s portfolio — an area in which Milpitas-based KLA is the principal specialist competitor.
At the time of its relocation, Sigray had been in a legal battle with Carl Zeiss X-Ray Microscopy Inc. for several years. Zeiss in 2020 had accused Sigray of patent infringement and trade-secret misappropriation involving intellectual property sold along with Yun’s predecessor venture, Xradia, in 2013.
A court previously determined on summary judgment that Sigray infringed two then-expired Zeiss patents, according to a September 2025 announcement from Sigray’s law firm, Knobbe Martens. After a six-day federal trial that month, jurors rejected Zeiss’s request for over $12 million in lost-profit damages and awarded a $785,000 royalty for past patent damages. The jury also rejected claims of willful infringement and trade-secret misappropriation, the firm said.
Jeff Quackenbush joined North Bay Business Journal in May 1999. Reach him at jeff@nbbj.news or 707-521-4256.