April 15, 2008 — FEI Company (Nasdaq: FEIC) and Imago Scientific Instruments have announced a comprehensive collaboration. The arrangements allow for FEI to establish an equity position in Imago and the option to purchase Imago in the future.

The alliance combines FEI’s tools for nanoscale exploration and discovery with Imago’s innovative and commercially viable atom probe technology. Imago’s LEAP atom probe enhances the breadth of FEI’s offerings and compliments FEI’s current transmission electron microscope (TEM) and DualBeam focused ion-beam/scanning electron microscope (FIB/SEM) product lines, the partners say.

Imago pioneered atom probe microscopy and is a market leader; its LEAP product line is used worldwide for the study of advanced materials, semiconductors and data storage devices. LEAP promises fast and comprehensive analysis of materials at the atomic scale. The LEAP technique offers the unique combination of high compositional sensitivity in the parts-per-million (ppm) range and atomic resolution imaging in three dimensions. LEAP microscopes complement TEMs such as the FEI Titan Family. In addition, sample preparation for both TEM and the atom probe is enabled by DualBeam tools, which FEI invented 15 years ago. FEI supplies both TEM and DualBeam platforms.

“We believe that the alliance will provide benefits to all parties,” said Don Kania, President and CEO of FEI. Tom Kelly, CEO, CTO and founder of Imago added, “With the technology having evolved to the point where there is now a large universe of practical applications, the next step is for us to enhance our ability to deliver complete application solutions. Our customers are using the Imago atom probe together with FEI TEM and DualBeam platforms. By working with FEI, we are able to innovate, optimize and provide the full solution to the customer’s problem. For Imago, the new partnership is part of the evolution from being an instrumentation provider to a solution provider.”