ADE Receives Order for Full Set of Production Metrology Systems From Silicon Wafer Startup Pure Wafer Ltd.

Business/Technology Editors

WESTWOOD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 11, 2001

ADE Corporation (NASDAQ, ADEX), the leading supplier of wafer measurement, inspection, and surface analysis systems for the silicon manufacturing industry, announced today that it has received orders for multiple systems from Pure Wafer, Ltd, a new wafer reclaim facility in Swansea, Wales, UK.

These include the 300mm AFS Advanced Flatness System and multiple 200mm UltraScan 9300 noncontact capacitance-based wafer geometry measurement systems. These multifunctional silicon sorters simultaneously report SEMI standard wafer shape, flatness, thickness and resistivity results for silicon wafer quality and process control applications.

For surface inspection, ADE is supplying an AWIS Constellation Advanced Wafer Inspection System for high throughput 300mm wafer defect detection with superior COP/particle discrimination and a WIS CR83-SQM system for nanotopography, particles, scratches and haze qualification and sorting. System installation is scheduled to begin in April, with full scale manufacturing to be achieved in early July.

Founded in August 2000, Pure Wafer is one of the largest ever technology startup businesses launched in the UK. Pure Wafer is targeted to become one of the industry leaders in reclaiming the next generation of 200 and 300mm silicon wafers. To learn more about Pure Wafer Ltd, please visit their Web site at www.purewafer.com

ADE Corporation is a leading supplier of superior metrology and inspection systems for the silicon wafer and computer disk manufacturing industries. The Company's systems analyze and report product quality at critical manufacturing process steps for yield enhancement and provide quality certification data that is relied upon by semiconductor and computer disk manufacturers to maximize productivity and minimize cost of ownership. The Company's systems also are used in the fabrication of integrated circuits. To learn more about ADE, the company invites you to visit our Web site at http://www.ade.com.

This news release contains certain forward-looking statements that are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. These statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties associated with the strength of the semiconductor and hard disk markets, wafer pricing and wafer demand, the results of its product development efforts, the success of ADE's product offerings to meet customer needs within the timeframes required by customers in these markets, further increases in backlog, our visibility, and the Companies predictions of future financial outcomes. Further information on potential factors that could affect ADE Corporation's business is described in the each company's reports on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended April 30, 2000.