PRESS RELEASES

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

Boin GmbH, a start-up company located in Tomerdingen, Germany, announced the shipment of a company-wide site license of its metrology software WAFERMAP to STEAG RTP Systems GmbH, a leading supplier of Rapid Thermal Processing systems.

WAFERMAP, which runs under Windows 95 and NT4.0, will be used by STEAG process engineers for off-line metrology data analysis and visualization. It allows for importing of data files from metrology equipment such as ellipsometers and four point probes as well as many other metrology tools used throughout the semiconductor industry. Data can be visualized and printed as 1D, 2D (contour) or 3D plots or as histograms. The software also includes an interface to STEAG RTP Systems´ 'OPUS' optimization software package.

"This is the largest order we received since our start-up in August 1998. Besides our activities for WAFERMAP OEM licenses for metrology equipment suppliers, we are also concentrating on sales and marketing of the product to end users." said Dr. Manuela Boin, General Manager and co-founder of Boin GmbH. She added: "Typical end users are process and metrology engineers in wafer fabs and at equipment manufacturers."

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

STEAG RTP Systems GmbH, a member of STEAG Electronic Systems, is based in Dornstadt, Germany and San Jose, California USA. As a leading supplier of RTP tools worldwide, STEAG RTP Systems has additional customer support facilities in Japan, Korea, the United Kingdom, France, Taiwan and Singapore. Please contact us directly at the email address: l.conger@steag-ast.de or visit us at our website, http://www.steag-ast.com.