KLAC

Kla Corporation

A maker of the inspection and measurement tools chipmakers use to spot defects in the wafers, reticles, and circuits that power phones and computers, KLA is one of the world's largest suppliers of semiconductor process control. It began in 1975 when Ken Levy and Bob Anderson founded KLA Instruments, taking the name from their initials, and it became KLA-Tencor after a 1997 merger before simplifying back to KLA in 2019. Fun fact: insiders jokingly recast the acronym as "Keep Learning Always."