Two chip suppliers told investors on Monday that the AI build-out is still feeding through to the companies that sell materials and inspection tools to fabs. Entegris used its 2026 Capital Markets Day to set a long-term model of about 15% annual revenue growth and a $500 million buyback. Onto Innovation, reporting after the close, posted record third-quarter revenue of $409.7 million, up 88% from a year earlier, and guided higher again for the fourth quarter.
The same day a survey of 200 semiconductor executives landed with a less tidy message. Chip companies are spending more on AI inside their own operations, and most can’t say clearly what they get for it.
Entegris sets the bar at 15%
Entegris sells the specialty chemicals, filters and contamination control gear that every advanced fab buys again and again. Its new long-term targets call for compound revenue growth of about 15%, an adjusted gross margin of about 55%, an adjusted operating margin of about 35% and adjusted EPS growth of about 30%. The company didn’t attach a target year in what it published. CEO Dave Reeder tied the plan to rising materials intensity: each move to a smaller node and each new layer of advanced packaging uses more chemistry and more filtration per wafer.
The capital return side is the part investors can count on sooner. The board approved a $500 million repurchase program, the quarterly dividend is set to rise 10% from the first quarter of 2027, and Entegris says it will hand back about half of its excess cash once it has funded growth and acquisitions. It also pointed to progress cutting net leverage, which had been the main worry since the CMC Materials deal.
Onto Innovation runs ahead of its own guidance
Onto’s quarter ended September 30. Revenue of $409.7 million was up 19% from the second quarter. Non-GAAP gross margin reached 57.6% and non-GAAP operating margin 32.6%, against 21.1% a year earlier. Non-GAAP EPS came in at $2.44, compared with $0.92. GAAP EPS was $0.95, held down by a $40.8 million unrealized loss on its new 27% stake in Japan’s Rigaku, which closed in August.
Both of Onto’s businesses set records. Advanced nodes were led by the Atlas G6 optical metrology system. Advanced packaging and specialty devices were led by the Dragonfly G5 and Firefly inspection tools, the machines that check the bumps and interconnects in stacked AI packages. Backlog rose above $1.3 billion. Fourth-quarter guidance calls for revenue of $430 million to $450 million and non-GAAP EPS of $2.59 to $2.79, and CEO Mike Plisinski said 2026 revenue growth should top 45%.
The survey that cuts the other way
HTEC, an engineering services firm, surveyed 200 semiconductor executives in the US, UK, Germany, Saudi Arabia and the UAE as part of a 1,500-person cross-industry study. 78% said their AI spending rose over the past year, and 36% require a formal ROI model before approving a project. After launch, discipline slips. 38% report AI value case by case and only 28% use an enterprise dashboard. Just 22% said the purpose and expected outcome of their AI work is clearly understood across the company, the lowest of any sector in the study. 83% said people and processes, not technology, are what hold back the value.
For investors, the gap matters less than it seems. Entegris and Onto are paid when fabs build capacity for customers’ AI chips, not when chipmakers prove their own internal AI pays off. The risk sits further up the chain, with the hyperscalers whose capex funds those fabs. As long as that spending holds, materials intensity and packaging inspection are two of the cleaner ways to own it.
For more on that spending, see the AI Capex Tracker for November 2026 and the latest Semicap Pulse reading.
