PRESS RELEASES

Tomerdingen (Germany) - For immediate release - February 10, 1999

Boin GmbH, a start-up company located in Tomerdingen, Germany, announced the shipment of multiple licenses of its metrology software WAFERMAP to KLA-Tencor Corp., the world leader in yield management and process control solutions for semiconductor manufacturing and related industries.

WAFERMAP is used in wafer fabs and at equipment suppliers for off-line metrology data analysis. It allows to import data files from metrology equipment such as ellipsometers and four point probes used within the semiconductor industry. The software enables the user to import data files from different metrology equipment. Data can be visualized as 1D, 2D (contour), 3D plots and histograms. A wide range of data manipulation techniques is offered with the software. The off-line capabilities of WAFERMAP increases the productivity of metrology equipment by reducing the time process engineers need to spend at the equipment for data analysis.

According to Dr.Manuela Boin, co-founder and General Manager of Boin GmbH, KLA-Tencor is the 3rd customer among metrology equipment suppliers using WAFERMAP after Sopra, a french company and Eichhorn und Haussmann, a german company. Dr.Boin said: "This is an important achievement for our company. Being recognized as supplier to KLA-Tencor reflects the high quality and acknowledges the benefits brought by WAFERMAP. Our target is to set a standard to review, analyze and visualize metrology data files within the semiconductor industry." Dr.Boin added: "We believe our order rate will improve over the next few month´ as more customers have evaluated the software. We expect to sell at least two site licenses of WAFERMAP until July 1999. Besides this, our company is currently focussed on discussing new applications and requirements with a number of customers. We work hard on the improved version 2.0 of WAFERMAP to be released in Q3/1999".

Boin GmbH already announced the implementation of an interface to import data files from the new RS-100 OmniMap four point probing system in December 1998.

A free Evaluation Copy of WAFERMAP can be downloaded at Download.

Contact:

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