Jun 17 2009
Nanometrics Incorporated (Nasdaq: NANO) and Zygo Corporation (Nasdaq: ZIGO), each leading providers of optical metrology technologies to the global semiconductor and related industries, today announced that Nanometrics has purchased inventory and certain other assets relating to ZYGO's Semiconductor Solutions business and that the two companies have entered into a supply agreement. Under an exclusive OEM supply agreement, ZYGO will provide interferometer sensors to Nanometrics for incorporation into the Unifire line of products as well as Nanometrics' family of automated metrology systems.
"We are very excited about our new business partnership with ZYGO," commented Tim Stultz, CEO of Nanometrics. "The Unifire is a terrific complement to our current product offering, and our partnership with ZYGO enables us to integrate an additional state-of-the-art metrology sensor into our system-level platform while leveraging our existing application, distribution and support capabilities. With ZYGO's unique optical metrology capabilities, we expand our served markets to include the high end of dimensional control metrology for the rapidly-growing back-end-of-line packaging market, while also enhancing our product offerings to front-end-of-line metrology customers."
Commented Bruce Robinson, CEO of Zygo Corporation, "By leveraging Nanometrics' established position as a top-tier supplier in the semiconductor industry, we can accomplish our goal of accelerating the commercial deployment and market penetration of our core interferometer technology into the worldwide semiconductor industry, without the investment associated with system integration, distribution, applications and support."
The arrangement is structured as an asset purchase and exclusive OEM supply agreement aimed at wafer-based markets. Nanometrics will assume all inventory, backlog and customer sales and support responsibilities and ZYGO will provide measurement sensors for integration by Nanometrics. In addition to the applications currently addressed by Nanometrics and ZYGO products, the business partnership allows for the joint development of additional technology solutions targeted at the semiconductor and related industries.