November 25, 2003 – KLA-Tencor, San Jose, CA, and Soitec, Grenoble, France, are forming a joint program to improve the quality and yield of, and production costs for, silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers. The joint development partnership will create wafer inspection systems, based on KLA-Tencor’s Surfscan, optimized for SOI at the 90nm and 65nm nodes, and compatible with substrates including strained silicon and SiGe. The first of the tools is expected to ship to Soitec in early 2004.