October 11, 2006 – MKS Instruments Inc., Wilmington, MA, has acquired privately held Novx Corp., a San Jose-based supplier of electrostatic charge process monitoring equipment for an undisclosed amount.

Novx and its 14 employees will be folded into MKS’ Ion Systems product group in Alameda, CA, which was acquired in January 2006 and develops ionization technology to control electrostatic charge to reduce process contamination and improve yields.

The deal widens MKS’ capabilities for monitoring, detecting, and controlling electrostatic charge in advanced process environments, such as semiconductor and hard disk drive manufacturing, according to Leo Berlinghieri, MKS’ president and CEO.

“Particle contamination from electrostatic charge attraction can cause damage in wafer manufacturing and other advanced processes. There is a need for continuous real-time electrostatic charge monitoring to increase manufacturing yields,” he said, in a statement. “To solve this problem, we plan to optimize closed-loop ionization control by integrating Novx’s sensor technology and data acquisition software with Ion Systems’ ionization technology for managing electrostatic attraction and discharge.”