August 30, 2001 — DANVILLE, CA — Wafer cleaning supply manufacturer EKC Technology is expaning its Hayward, California manufacturing facility after having moved its corporate headquarters to a new location.

The ChemFirst subsidiary, which supplies chemicals for wafer cleaning, surface preparations, CMP and photoresist/post-etch residue remover for the semiconductor industry, has aleady made upgrades to the Hayward facility’s remover chemical manufacturing area. Those improvements include the installation of automated blending and filling operations using in-line particle monitoring. The plant’s filtration systems have also been upgraded.

Currently, the company’s packaging is conducted in an ISO Class 6 (Class 1,000) cleanroom and officials say that by the end of the year the chemical packaging area will be fully automated.

The company recently relocated management offices for sales, marketing, R&D, accounting human resources from the Hayward site to a new, 11,000 square foot facility in nearby Danville.