Innovative Sensor Helps Achieve Strong Market Acceptance
Plainview, NY, July 20, 2009 --
Veeco Instruments Inc. (Nasdaq: VECO), a leader in scientific and industrial metrology, today announced the shipment of the 500th Dektak® 150 Surface Profiler. Introduced in 2006, the Dektak 150 has been widely accepted as a superior solution for measuring thin film thickness, stress, and surface roughness and form in a wide range of settings, from educational research verification to semiconductor process control. More recently, the Dektak 150 has been a well-received characterization tool for the growing solar cell market, and has been adopted by many of the major photovoltaic solar cell manufacturers.
“
Veeco’s Dektak 150 has been a valuable asset for supporting our technology development and manufacturing improvement efforts,”
said Ed Graddy, R&D Manager at Ferro Corporation.
“The profiler has demonstrated superb repeatability and sample flexibility for our key surface measurement applications, from characterizing material roughness to profiling the PV-silver contact.”
“
The Dektak 150 Stylus Profiler has seen tremendous market acceptance,”
stated Mark R. Munch, Ph.D., Executive Vice President, Veeco Metrology.
“One of the major enabling components in the Dektak 150 is the Low-Inertia Sensor 3 head. This sensor incorporates innovations that reduce noise, improve isolation, and allow for easier stylus replacement. Undoubtedly, these are important factors in the Dektak 150’s rapid achievement of this milestone.”
About the Dektak 150
The Dektak 150 features a unique modular design that enables it to be configured to meet a wide range of application and budgetary requirements. With a variety of configurations, the system offers application packages for everything from simple step height measurements to advanced automation with programmable X-Y positioning of wafers. The compact system accommodates samples up to 90 millimeters thick, performs long scans of 55 millimeters (200 millimeters stitching), and provides a larger X-Y translation than competing systems. The half-millimeter vertical range provides the best standard Z performance in the industry, and a 1-millimeter option extends the vertical capabilities even further. With sub-nanometer step-height repeatability, the Dektak 150 accurately measures step-heights for thin films below 10 nanometers thick, as well as thick films and curved surfaces up to nearly one-millimeter.
About Veeco
Veeco Instruments Inc. designs, manufactures, markets and services enabling solutions for customers in the HB-LED, solar, data storage, semiconductor, scientific research and industrial markets. We have leading technology positions in our three businesses: LED & Solar Process Equipment, Data Storage Process Equipment, and Metrology Instruments. Veeco's product development, marketing, engineering and manufacturing facilities are located in New York, New Jersey, California, Colorado, Arizona, Massachusetts and Minnesota. Global sales and service offices are located throughout the U.S., Europe, Japan and Asia Pacific.
http://www.veeco.com/
To the extent that this news release discusses expectations or otherwise makes statements about the future, such statements are forward-looking and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made. These factors include the risks discussed in the Business Description and Management's Discussion and Analysis sections of Veeco's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2009 and in our subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and press releases.Veeco does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances after the date of such statements.