Jan. 10, 2008 – Coming off a year in which it significantly changed its focus and carved out multiple businesses, Nanometrics is starting the new year where it left off.

The move, a response increasing softness in semiconductor capital equipment demand, will reduce the company’s global workforce by about 7%, affecting each of its worldwide locations. Restructuring charges of about $600K will be recorded in 1Q08, but cost savings will be “fully realized ” by 2Q08, according to president/CEO Tim Stultz. “While this was a difficult decision for us to make, it came about as a result of our stated strategy to run our business with reduced sensitivity to revenue level,” he said in a statement.

Stultz added that the company still holds a positive longer-term outlook about the metrology sector, and that the company is well-positioned in its markets and will remain “committed to investing in R&D.”

Nanometrics has had a busy past year, after acquiring two metrology firms in the summer of 2006 (Soluris and Accent Optical Technologies). In March of 2007 its CEO left the company, followed by the CFO and April. In the fall it sold off its Yosemite CD-SEM and DiVA product lines, consolidated its overlay metrology production in Korea (and closed the Soluris site in Concord, MA), sold an idle FPD-related facility in Japan and a machine/plating shop in the US, and appointed former Imago top exec Stultz as its new CEO.