Nova Measuring Instruments trains its optics on things invisible to the naked eye -- but on a microscopic rather than a stellar scale. The company's NovaScan and NovaTrack optical monitoring systems are integrated into wafer polishers and other semiconductor processing equipment to measure the thickness of semiconductor layers during critical steps of chip manufacturing. Nova's tools support the manufacturing processes of chemical mechanical planarization, chemical vapor deposition, etching, and photolithography. Customers -- such as Applied Materials, Ebara, Lam Research, and Novellus -- integrate Nova's tools into their equipment. Nova also sells its stand-alone systems directly to manufacturers.