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July 25, 2006 — FEI Co. of Hillsboro, Ore., announced on Monday that Don Kania has been named president, chief executive officer and a board member of the company. He is expected to start at FEI Co., which makes tools for nanoscale characterization and research, in mid August. The appointment marks the end of a search that began with the stepping down of previous CEO Vahe Sarkissian, who left FEI in April.

Kania, 51, was the president and chief operating officer of Woodbury, N.Y.-based Veeco Instruments Inc. Kania said on Tuesday that he was looking forward to moving west. He and his wife have wanted to settle on a small farm, he said, and Oregon is a good place for that.

For Kania, who had been with Veeco since 1998, nanotech offers its own version of fertile fields. “It’s early in its evolution and the promise of nanotechnology is that it will change how things work,” he said. “That is what is driving the convergence between the physicists’ view and the life scientists’ view of the world.”

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He sees FEI’s place in that future as “providing fundamental tools for exploring everything from the structure of molecules to creating structures on that [molecular] scale.”

Before moving to Veeco, Kania held technical and management positions at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. He holds B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics and engineering from the University of Michigan.

“Veeco is not planning on hiring a replacement, but will have the senior managers report directly to the CEO,” wrote W.R. Hambrecht analyst John Roy in a research note Tuesday morning.

FEI has been in merger or acquisition talks at least twice in recent years. At the end of 2002, a $1 billion deal to merge with Veeco fell through. More recently, FEI terminated discussions to be acquired by Carl Zeiss AG of Germany.

Both companies offer metrology equipment for measurement and imaging, but each focuses on different areas. Veeco specializes in atomic force microscopes for submicron surface profiling. FEI makes ion and electron beam tools for failure analysis, fab production process control and other tasks.

However, FEI does not seem to be on the block any longer. Roy, for one, wrote that he now expects the company to remain independent.

He and other analysts agree that now that the new CEO is in place, execution on the company’s plans is critical.

“As Kania knows the tool market well, we expect he will have no trouble relating to FEI Company’s customers,” Roy said. But, he added, “The role of CEO is something new to Dr. Kania, so it may take some time for him to begin running at full speed.”

For the full year 2006 he estimates $468 million in sales and earnings per share of 57 cents. The company reports earnings on Aug. 2.

New York-based JoAnne Feeney, a managing director and senior research analyst at FTN Midwest Securities Corp. said, “I think Don Kania helped Veeco overhaul Veeco operations. He’s likely to be a great asset to FEI as they move to operational effectiveness.”

As COO at Veeco, he had become quite familiar with the needs of execution to match technology but, surmised Feeney, perhaps he is more valuable at FEI. “He was likely to be underused at Veeco given the excellent capabilities of Veeco CEO Ed Braun,” she said.

July 25, 2006 — FEI Co. of Hillsboro, Ore., announced on Monday that Don Kania has been named president, chief executive officer and a board member of the company. He is expected to start at FEI Co. in mid August. The appointment marks the end of a search that began with the stepping down of previous CEO Vahe Sarkissian, who left FEI in April.

Kania, 51, was the president and chief operating officer of Veeco Instruments Inc. of Woodbury, N.Y., where he has worked since 1998. Prior to that, Kania held technical and general management positions of increasing responsibility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory. He holds B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics and engineering from the University of Michigan.

“Don brings a wealth of business and technological experience to FEI, and I am very excited that he has decided to join our company,” said Ray Link, chief financial officer and interim chief executive officer of FEI, in a prepared statement. “His leadership and background, particularly in Asian markets, will help FEI continue to grow and prosper. He is an outstanding person to add to our already strong and seasoned management team, and we are all looking forward to working with him.”

“FEI has great technology strengths, large and expanding market opportunities and a dedicated group of employees worldwide,” said Kania in a prepared statement. “I’m looking forward to building on that foundation and working with the existing team to continue our operating improvements, take advantage of our great potential, generate solid returns for our shareholders and create growth opportunities for our employees.”

Veeco and FEI came close to merging in 2002 but the companies bowed out of the deal, citing poor economic and market conditions.

July 25, 2006 – Veeco Instruments Inc. announced that it received an order during the second quarter of 2006 for its new NEXUS Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) Multi-Target Sensor tool from a leading manufacturer of thin film magnetic heads. The system is used to deposit high-quality, extremely uniform, thin film multi-layer stacks and will be used by the customer to manufacture high areal density Tunneling Magneto-Resistive heads.

The company also said it received a record $17 million in second quarter 2006 orders for its automated AFMs. Customers placing orders included those from the semiconductor and data storage industries. In addition, the company said several photomask manufacturers have selected Veeco’s automated AFMs for metrology needs at 45nm and below. Applications for the tool include measurement of critical dimension & 3D metrology on a variety of mask materials (such as MoSi, chrome-on-glass, and resist), and for high-resolution defect review for photomask repair.

July 24, 2006 – Nano Chemical Systems Holdings Inc. announced the opening of its first branch office in Guangzhou, China. Over the next few months the company expects to open additional branch offices in three other major Chinese cities, Xian and Harbin in July, and Beijing in August. All four branch offices will report directly to the company’s headquarters in the United States.

The company said it has signed a contract with Benchmark China Limited to assist with the company’s expansion into China’s industrial market. Benchmark China Limited is a consulting and investment management company offering services to American and Chinese businesses seeking to do business in China and the United States.

Nano Chemical Systems Holdings, Inc. has a wholly owned subsidiary, SeaSpray Aerosol, Inc. that produces aerosol products for its own formulae and does private labeling for various customers. SeaSpray operates out of a 36,000 square foot facility that contains offices, research, warehouse and manufacturing operations. The company is also engaged in enhancing the effectiveness of its product line using nanotechnology where applicable.

July 21, 2006 – South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds announced a cooperative agreement with Zyvex Corp. of Richardson, Texas, to establish a Nanomaterials Prototyping, Testing and Characterization Facility at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology’s Polymer Processing Center.

Under this agreement, Zyvex will immediately open its first satellite facility in Rapid City, S.D. Zyvex-South Dakota will initially manufacture pilot-scale quantities of Zyvex’s NanoSolve material. Zyvex also will become a major user of the SDSM&T-PPC, utilizing the center’s facilities to produce and characterize new nanomaterial-based products.

Production activity has already begun in the facility for Zyvex’s sporting goods customers, with a production rate up to 800 pounds of NanoSolve Enhanced Epoxy per month. The material is used to make carbon fiber composite structures stronger and stiffer, and is finding significant acceptance in the high performance sporting goods market.

Zyvex said it expects to add at least eight to ten people to the South Dakota facility over the next 18 months (with more to follow) and is currently interviewing for the startup staff. South Dakota-based Zyvex employees will work closely with the company’s established nanomaterials experts in Texas to create and verify nanomaterials-based composites and processing techniques to market-driven specifications.

July 21, 2006 – NanoInk Inc. announced the appointment of Keith Brauer to the company’s board of directors. Brauer is filling the board seat vacated by Ruff Fant, who recently resigned from the board.

Most recently, Brauer served as Guidant Corporation’s vice president, finance and chief financial officer until Guidant was acquired by Boston Scientific in 2006. Additionally, while at Guidant, he was responsible for information systems, treasury and investor relations.

Prior to Guidant, Mr. Brauer spent 20 years with Eli Lilly and Company, where he held various positions, including executive director, international finance and chief accounting officer; director of corporate affairs, as well as other positions.

July 21, 2006 — Formerly known as Nanotechnologies Inc., an Austin, Texas-based manufacturer of high-performance nanomaterials is renaming itself NovaCentrix and shifting from nano-based powder production to market-ready products.

While some firms have been able to integrate new materials into products, a handful of smaller outfits, including NovaCentrix, are coming to the conclusion that they are best suited to seeing their materials through to products themselves. By shifting their focus, they are attracting more financial support and, they say, taking the critical next steps toward commercialization.

NovaCentrix CEO Steve Leach, who took the helm of Nanotechnologies Inc. last September and ran with the company’s plans to shift from powders to products, recalled a recent industry discussion that focused on the increasing importance of looking beyond nanomaterials themselves.

“Everyone in the room was saying that making a material alone is really not interesting,” he said. “It’s what are the markets and applications that are going to drive adoption of this materials science.”

“We’re out of research. We’re done with research,” Leach added regarding his company’s shift. “We’re into development and execution.”

Much of the impetus for the change to NovaCentrix — which will now aim the company’s foundation in nanomaterials-based powder synthesis at electronics circuit printing with special inks, energetic materials, and life sciences applications such as bacteria and virus-killing bandages — comes from impatience with customers and other organizations that had high hopes for the powders, but never took them much further toward products, according to Leach.

“It was this forever sample process,” he explained, referring to hundreds of samples going out to various researchers. “If we envision nanopowders can be formulated into inks, why don’t we give them the inks.”

The company further learned that its own research and development teams, which were split into too many different directions previously, were nonetheless often further along toward real products or applications, which are now the basis of the new company, Leach said.

“We were letting customers rework problems we had solved because we’re the most knowledgeable,” he said, referring to dispersion and formulation of the nanomaterials that had always been a part of the company.

Leach, a former Dell Computer executive with a self-described “product planning background,” said the NovaCentrix move highlights the need and the struggle for the industry to come up with live, concrete applications.

He said his company will now be looking at the next step for its nanomaterials, and it will move away from more common nanometals toward strictly exotic ones.

“These are hard to do and we have a very unique process that makes them well,” he said. “What we were doing wasn’t working. It was taking too long. It was a matter of what are we going to do to shake things up.”

While Leach said his company’s re-focus was reminiscent of similar moves by nanomaterials manufacturer NanoDynamics of Buffalo, N.Y., there are a number of companies making the move away from strictly materials and toward market applications, according to JoAnne Feeney, managing director and senior research analyst for FTN Midwest Securities. She said NovaCentrix, ceramics polymer producer Starfire Systems of Malta, N.Y., nanoscale textile enhancement maker Nano-Tex of Emeryville, Calif., and Nanofilm of Valley View, Ohio, were all examples of the trend.

“There was a hope that if they created these materials, someone would find a way to use it,” Feeney said. “People realized it’s very difficult to build a company based solely on material.”

At the same time, it is possible to make a go of it. Nanophase Technologies of Romeoville, Ill., makes a variety of nanomaterials for applications that span everything from marine coatings to sunscreen to semiconductor polishing. It announced second quarter revenue Thursday night of $2.4 million, and counts as customers both BASF and Rodel, a division of Rohm and Haas Co. However, Nanophase is at a different stage than the smaller startups. It went public in 1997 whereas the others are still privately-held and many are backed by venture capitalists.

Feeney believes some of the disappointment around nanomaterials was caused by inadequate investment in the nanomaterials companies, which did not have the capital to take their materials all the way to the product stage, including development of a working prototype, placement in a product, and demonstration of its advantages.

“Imagine all the money required to do all that,” Feeney said.

Nevertheless, the analyst added the shift among nanomaterials companies is being accompanied by a shift among investors, who are now realizing the value is not in the material, but in a market for it.

“Materials companies have to be application companies to be viable,” Feeney said. “They’re not just selling the material. They’re selling the material and knowledge, the material and technology. Hopefully investors are starting to see that.”

July 20, 2006 – EV Group (EVG), based in St. Florian/Inn, Austria, and Brewer Science, based in Rolla, Mo., announced that they are co-developing a solution for the handling of ultrathin wafers that will allow high-temperature advanced packaging processes using a temporary wafer bonding system.

EVG’s EVG850 Temporary Bonding platform is already used extensively in low-temperature post-processing applications in the compound semiconductor and power device markets. The company says the extension of the product line into tackling one of the mainline semiconductor industry’s technical hurdles is a natural progression for the system.

July 20, 2006 – SUSS MicroTec, a supplier of precision manufacturing and test equipment for the semiconductor and emerging markets, showed for the first time a unique wafer bonding system designed for high vacuum applications. The company says it will be available in the third quarter of 2006.

The field-upgradeable load locked wafer bonding system was developed by SUSS MicroTec for advanced MEMS devices that require ultra clean, low moisture and low contamination vacuum bonding.

Named “M-Lock,” the new product offering is well suited for MEMS devices with on-chip getters such as silicon gyros and other advanced MEMS products, according to the company. The M-Lock system furthers the state-of-the-art process technology for wafer bonded MEMS sensors and devices that require on-chip high vacuum or an ultra-clean wafer bonding environment for high performance and high reliability products. This is achieved by maintaining high vacuum with a secondary load lock chamber and by heating the vacuum chamber walls to reduce the effect of outgassing during wafer bonding.

July 20, 2006 – XACTIX Inc. and Surface Technology Systems PLC announced a comprehensive line of production-oriented release etching tools for MEMS.

The tools produced under this collaboration use xenon difluoride gas to perform a highly selective isotropic etch into bulk silicon or to remove sacrificial layers.

The two companies say that over the last three years they have been collaborating in manufacturing and marketing equipment which uses xenon difluoride gas to isotropically etch bulk silicon or remove sacrificial layers made from silicon, molybdenum or germanium. They said the collaboration sprang from a realization that there is a wide diversity of requirements for release etching and the two companies had complementary capabilities to address these requirements effectively.

The products include a xenon difluoride etching module for the STS platform. This module can be combined with any of the STS wafer handling options and combined with any other STS module in a cluster format; the Xetch X3M etcher for simultaneously etching batches of wafers or other wafer size flat substrates in the wafer boat; and, the Xetch XT etcher for etching larger substrates or large batches of non wafer substrates.

The companies say all of the systems have been shipped to customers. An updated version of the CVE module is slated to be available for shipment at the end of 2006 and is currently ready for customer samples.

Isotropic etching using xenon difluoride gas is rapidly becoming a key MEMS process technology and is being adopted by both large and small companies looking to increase yield, lower costs or increase device performance.