FEI expands its European presence

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July 8, 2004 – With European sales growing, FEI Company, based in Hillsboro, Ore., has expanded its Eindhoven campus in the Netherlands and opened a new research center.

At the new center, called NanoPort, scientists and FEI developers will work on joint research and development projects. These include the European Union’s recently announced Interaction Proteome project, according to corporate and marketing communications senior manager, Dan Zenka.

“We also offer an academy where we have applications classes taught by FEI people and featured speakers for scientists and researchers,” Zenka said. As part of the opening, FEI sponsored a nanotechnology symposium for European researchers.

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The company makes charged particle beam systems, tools that reveal images of organic and man-made structures and compounds, down to the sub-Angstrom level, for characterization, analysis, modification and fabrication.

Products include focused ion beam (FIB) systems, DualBeam systems, scanning and transmission electron microscopes, and components, including automation software for a broad range of applications.

Heading the Eindhoven operation is Rob Fastenau, senior vice-president and general manager of FEI’s Electron Optics Product Division in the Netherlands.

With the opening of NanoPort, Fastenau said he hopes to “promote the development of new nanotechnology applications in Europe.

FEI Company is part of a strong regional network. The knowledge and experience brought together at NanoPort will strengthen this network.” FEI’s European expansion makes sense to Matt Petkun, research analyst for Portland-based, D.A. Davidson and Co. He likes FEI as a nano-company, because “the nano part of the business is growth, while the semiconductor part is stable.”

The NanoPort “represents the fact that FEI for several quarters has seen a lot of sales come out of Europe,” Petkun said. “They have one [research center] in the U.S., here in Oregon, but now they will have a suite of tools available for researchers in Europe.”

Since, “nanotech is very much in development, this is a good opportunity for FEI to get feedback about their tools from researchers,” he said. “At least in terms of the nanotech portion of their products, the research and development arms of nano tech have been stronger in Europe.”

FEI has long served international markets and has main offices in Europe and India as well as the US. The company’s Eindhoven operations began when the company acquired Philips Electron Optics division in 1997. The center does not receive European Union or U.S. government grants.

New space for the NanoPort was added on the campus, as part of FEI’s lease agreement. The improvements bring the total area of its European development and operations center to nearly 17,000 square meters.

Robert Maire, semiconductor equipment analyst at Needham & Co. http://www.needhamco.com/ in Portland, believes centers like FEI’s are a good marketing tool.

“Many companies do this,” he said. “It’s a way of promoting your products and building support for your products and new technologies, especially nanotechnology. They’re already quite successful in the semiconductor business.”

With nanotechnology business development occurring all across the globe, “You have a measure of where manufacturing technology is these days,” FEI’s marketing manager, Zenka, said.

“With that comes the enabling capability of discovery – exploration of inner space, rather than outer space,” he added.

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