PRESS RELEASES

Tomerdingen (Germany) - For immediate release - May 5, 2008

Boin GmbH, a metrology software manufacturer for the semiconductor industry, announces the order of multiple WAFERMAP software licenses from Foothill Instruments, LLC, a manufacturer of film and wafer thickness metrology systems. Foothill Instruments and Boin have operated under an OEM agreement since 1999 for the usage of Boin´s WAFERMAP software. Boin has previously received orders for multiple licenses from Foothill Instruments.

WAFERMAP is an award winning software package used to collect, edit, analyze and visualize measured physical parameters on semiconductor wafers. WAFERMAP can import data files from various metrology tools such as ellipsometers, thickness gauges and four point probes. The imported data can then be visualized or printed as line scans, contour plots, 2D or 3D plots or as a histogram.

WAFERMAP enables process engineers to analyze and visualize metrology data from different automatic metrology equipment off-line, outside the clean room and in a standardized way. This makes such metrology data files easy comparable. A module for Statistical Process Control (SPC) is implemented offering trend charts, trend lists and an advanced file browser. WAFERMAP allows for a number of mathematical operations applied to metrology data files such as rotation, shifting of the grid in the X or Y direction, or mirroring the data along the X or Y axis. It is also possible to compare different sets of data by adding, subtracting or dividing entire wafer maps. Global operations such as adding or subtracting a constant or taking the 1st or 2nd derivative can be carried out.

"WAFERMAP allows our customers to quickly and easily visualize the uniformity of the thickness," reports Glenn Houser, president of Foothill Instruments. "The added functions also help users with analysis such as photoresist process development and etch rate calculations. This software has been a strong selling point for us over the years." Foothill has integrated this software into all of their film and wafer thickness products which have automated stages.

A free Evaluation Copy of WAFERMAP can be downloaded from: Download.

Contact:

Boin GmbH
E-Mail: info@boin-gmbh.com
Web: www.boin-gmbh.com
Tel: +49 (0) 7348-928233

Foothill Instruments, LLC
La Canada, CA 91011 USA
E-Mail: sales@foothill-instruments.com
Web: http://www.foothill-instruments.com
Tel: (+1) (818) 952-5600