Asyst Receives $12 Million Order for Wafer Sorters; Major U.S. Supplier of Communications Chips Chooses Asyst 200mm and 300mm Sorters for Multiple-Fab Installation.

Business/High-Tech Editors

FREMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 21, 2000

Asyst Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq:ASYT), the world's largest semiconductor fab automation company, today announced it has received an order valued at more than $12 million from a leading U.S. supplier of semiconductors used in communications applications.

The order comprises Asyst Substrate Management System(TM) (SMS(TM)) wafer sorters in a wide variety of configurations, including the newest version of the product created specifically for 300mm fab lines. The SMS units will be installed at four of the chip company's fabs located in the United States and Europe, representing a follow-on for Asyst products in one fab and new Asyst installations in the other three.

Used by semiconductor device manufacturers to manipulate and identify wafers, Asyst's SMS family of automated, high-productivity wafer sorters are designed to ensure that wafers remain in a Class 0.1 environment during all fab process steps. In the communications chipmaker's rigorous technical evaluation, the SMS products outperformed competitive wafer sorters in key areas, including scribe read rate, connectivity and ease-of-use, as well as safety and ergonomic issues related to processing of larger, heavier 300mm wafers. Asyst believes additional factors that influenced the customer's selection of the SMS included its minimal footprint (the smallest allowed by Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International standards); its rapid throughput, which exceeded that of the competition by more than 100 wafers per hour; and the fact that Asyst's installed base of sorters is the industry's largest -- more than 1,000 units worldwide.

"It's a source of great satisfaction when a customer trusts your product enough to select it repeatedly for exclusive use," said Dennis Riccio, Asyst's senior vice president of global customer operations. "The customer intends to use the SMS as an open-cassette-to-SMIF bridge tool in one of its non-SMIF fabs. Asyst is the only wafer-sorter supplier to date that has successfully demonstrated this capability. We are pleased that a major supplier to the burgeoning communications product market has demonstrated confidence in our wafer-sorter technology."

This recent major order for the Asyst SMS products comes shortly after the June announcement that bookings for Asyst wafer sorters had climbed more than 380 percent as of the fourth quarter of fiscal 2000. Asyst believes the success of this product line indicates that customers are seeing how Asyst's advanced automation solutions help protect their valuable wafer assets throughout the fab. By implementing this platform with its "hands-off" approach, manufacturers can reduce handling-induced scratches and contamination, as well as protect against misprocessing errors. The bottom-line results are two-fold: improved yield and lower overall cost of ownership.

Manufactured at Asyst's Austin, Texas facility, the Asyst SMS is available in two-, three- and four-interface configurations, offering the industry's best available footprint, throughput and clean wafer handling. Asyst has developed versions of the SMS platform designed to accommodate both 200mm (in open-cassette, SMIF or open-cassette/SMIF combination units) and 300mm wafers, as well as allow for ease of migration to 300mm wafer manufacturing. To date, publicly announced SMS customers include industry leaders such as Chartered Semiconductor, First Silicon, Hewlett-Packard, KLA-Tencor, and System on Silicon Manufacturing Co. (SSMC).

Except for statements of historical fact, the statements in this press release are forward-looking. Such statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made. These factors include, but are not limited to, general economic conditions, semiconductor industry cycles, risks associated with the acceptance of new products and product capabilities and other factors more fully detailed in the Company's recent 10Q quarterly report on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

About Asyst: Asyst Technologies, Inc. is the leading provider of isolation and automation technologies that enable semiconductor makers to protect their valued assets throughout the manufacturing process while increasing manufacturing productivity. Through this "Value-Assured Fab" strategy, Asyst offers a broad range of 200mm and 300mm solutions that enable the safe transfer of wafers and information between the process equipment and the fab line throughout the IC fabrication process, preventing human, environmental, mechanical and chemical harm. Encompassing robotics, portals, wafer and reticle carriers, connectivity and interface products, and transport and loading products, Asyst's modular, interoperable solutions allow chipmakers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to select and employ the value-assured, hands-off manufacturing capabilities that best suit their needs. Asyst's homepage is http://www.asyst.com

Substrate Management System, SMS and SMIF are trademarks of Asyst Technologies, Inc.