MKS Q1 2026 Hits $1.08 Billion as Plasma, Vacuum and RF Power for Deposition and Etch Surge

By NineScrolls Team · 2026-05-09 · 4 min read · Industry

The Headline Numbers

MKS Inc. (NASDAQ: MKSI) reported first-quarter 2026 revenue of $1.078 billion, up 15% year over year and 4% sequentially, with non-GAAP earnings per share of $2.30 — beating the $2.04 consensus by $0.30, or roughly 13%. The results were released after the close on May 6 and detailed on the company's earnings call on May 7, 2026.

Shares jumped on the print as Q1 revenue, gross margin and EPS all came in at the high end or above the company's prior guidance ranges, with management citing strong bookings and AI-driven demand across deposition and etch end markets.

Semiconductor Segment: $466M and Accelerating

The semiconductor segment — MKS's largest — generated $466 million in Q1, accounting for 43% of total revenue. That was up 13% year over year and 7% sequentially, with broad-based strength across DRAM, NAND and Foundry/Logic applications.

Power solutions, in particular, posted sequential growth tied directly to NAND equipment upgrades, where stacking layer counts continue to push deposition and etch tools to higher RF power and tighter pulse control.

Where the Growth Came From: Plasma, Vacuum, RF Power

MKS's own commentary tied the sequential revenue growth to four distinct product lines feeding the deposition and etch tool base: vacuum and power products, plasma and reactive gas offerings for advanced logic nodes, and photonics solutions for lithography, metrology and inspection.

That product mix is significant. MKS does not build full deposition or etch chambers; it supplies the subsystems that determine whether those chambers actually meet 2nm and 3D NAND specifications — RF and microwave generators, mass flow controllers, pressure gauges, vacuum pumps and remote plasma sources.

Bookings: Remote Plasma in DRAM, Dissolved Gas in Logic

On the call, MKS specifically called out continued bookings strength in remote plasma and microwave plasma subsystems for DRAM, dissolved gas delivery for logic, and lasers for back-end applications — a mix that maps cleanly to AI-driven complexity in HBM4-class memory and sub-3nm logic.

Those are the same product categories that show up inside PECVD, ALD and reactive-ion etch tools from Applied Materials, Lam Research and Tokyo Electron — meaning MKS's bookings are an early read on the deposition and etch capacity those customers will ship in the back half of 2026.

Q2 Guidance: $1.2 Billion, Semi to $550M

Management guided Q2 2026 revenue to approximately $1.2 billion, plus or minus $40 million — about 11% sequential growth. Non-GAAP EPS is guided to $2.90 plus or minus $0.30, with adjusted EBITDA of $328 million plus or minus $26 million.

Within that, MKS expects semiconductor revenue to accelerate to $550 million plus or minus $15 million in Q2, representing high-teens sequential growth and more than 25% year-over-year growth — a step-change that points to a wafer fabrication equipment cycle still gaining speed, not plateauing.

What This Means for Plasma Processing and Thin Film Deposition

For plasma processing equipment, MKS's numbers are about as direct a read as the supply chain offers. Remote plasma sources, microwave plasma subsystems and RF generators are core to PECVD chamber cleans, plasma activation, dielectric etch and dry strip steps. Bookings strength in these specific product lines tells the industry that DRAM and logic fabs are still loading capacity for tools that rely on plasma generation hardware to move forward.

For thin film deposition systems, the story is the layer count problem. Each additional 3D NAND stack and each gate-all-around dielectric layer adds CVD, PECVD and ALD steps. MKS's vacuum products, gas delivery, pressure control and plasma reactive-gas offerings sit inside every one of those chambers; sequential growth here implies that ALD and CVD tool builders are pulling subsystems faster than they were even a quarter ago.

For the broader equipment supply chain — plasma sources, sputter targets, vacuum components, gas delivery, process monitoring — MKS is one of the cleanest barometers available. A 25% year-over-year semi guide for Q2, paired with continued bookings strength in remote plasma and dissolved gas, signals that downstream OEMs are building tools, not just shipping replacement parts. That is constructive for every supplier of vacuum, gas, RF and plasma-source hardware feeding the same fabs.