Brooks Automation Acquires SEMY Engineering, Inc.; Acquisition Enhances Brooks' Leadership in Advanced Process Control and Overall Factory Efficiency Solutions.

Business/Technology Editors

CHELMSFORD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 19, 2001

Brooks Automation, Inc. (NASDAQ: BRKS), a leading supplier of tool and factory hardware and software automation solutions for the semiconductor industry, announced today that it has acquired SEMY Engineering, Inc. (SEMY) of Phoenix, Arizona, a wholly owned subsidiary of Semitool, Inc. and a leading provider of advanced process and equipment control systems for the semiconductor industry. Consideration for the transaction was $36.0 million in cash and $2.75 million in stock and is expected to be accretive in Brooks' fiscal year 2001. In SEMY Engineering's fiscal year 2000, ending September 2000, the Company had revenues of $19.4 million and was profitable.

"Our customers are facing challenges in the chip fabrication process driven by industry trends including shrinking geometries, 300 millimeter wafers and the use of copper for IC interconnects. The ability to automate and control advanced processes and detect process errors before significant quantities of materials go through a defective process is critical," said Robert J. Therrien, president and chief executive officer, Brooks Automation, Inc. "Brooks' Factory Software Division offers an integrated CIM solution for optimizing equipment utilization and factory performance. With the addition of the SEMY products to the Brooks product family, we extend our CIM solution to include decision support capabilities that process and equipment engineers can use to achieve higher yield, faster throughput and increased efficiency. SEMY Engineering brings more than 15 years of success in the important process control solutions area, and we are proud to have them as a member of the Brooks organization."

With the acquisition of SEMY Engineering, Brooks expands its factory automation strategy to include SEMY's automated and integrated process control solutions, which provide real-time, proactive operating information for fab management to improve Overall Factory Efficiency (OFE). SEMY's solutions allow engineers to make better operating decisions that result in improved yield, reduced downtime, appropriate maintenance planning, and enhanced factory performance. These capabilities complement and extend Brooks' total integrated CIM solution. The expanded Brooks factory automation portfolio includes solutions for MES, equipment automation, maintenance management and station control, real-time scheduling and dispatching, material handling control, as well as fault detection and classification and advanced process control (APC).

"The increase in the complexity of the fabrication process has impeded OFE and, ultimately, fab profitability. Our mission at SEMY is to help companies increase OFE and financial growth, by giving them quick access to complete and timely data needed for sound decision-making. SEMY was the first company to provide automatic, continuous real-time data collection from process equipment and analytical applications to support operating decisions made by fab personnel," said Kevin Jackson, president of SEMY Engineering, Inc. "The capabilities of the SEMY product line, combined with the breadth, flexibility and depth of the Brooks Automation product portfolio, will give customers the most complete solution to optimizing factory performance that is available today."

SEMY Engineering offers product lines for APC supervisory systems, model-based equipment control systems, and productivity monitoring. The SEMY-Sentinel(TM) Supervisory System routes data between the tool, specific SEMY APC applications and other information networks such as the MES. SEMY APC applications include Statistical Machine Control(R) (SMC), a fault detection and classification application that uses statistical methods to evaluate the stability of specific process parameters; Advanced Run-to-Run Control (ARRC(TM)), which creates a closed-loop system incorporating equipment performance and metrology data for optimizing the process; and Predictive/Preventive Maintenance (P/PM), an application to minimize maintenance tasks. SEMY's products support process recipe management by assuring secure storage and distribution of all process recipes. The SEMY Engineering, Automated Reliability, Availability, Maintainability System (SEARAMS(TM)) is a modular, scalable system designed to integrate into any fab information architecture to provide productivity monitoring capabilities based on the latest industry standards, improving OFE.

Brooks Automation, Inc.

Brooks Automation, Inc. is the leading global supplier of OEM tool automation and factory management software for the semiconductor, data storage and flat panel display manufacturing industries. As an established market leader in hardware and software automation, Brooks continues to pioneer "Best-in-Class" technologies that outperform their competitors - from vacuum and atmospheric robots, cluster tool platforms and modules, ultra-clean mini-environments for isolating processing equipment and wafers - to factory and tool automation software and integration services. Both OEM and fab customers leverage Brooks Automation's products and environments. The Company has ISO 9001 certification, is headquartered in Chelmsford, Mass. and has direct operations in the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. Brooks' web-site is www.brooks.com.

Semitool, Inc.

Semitool is a worldwide leader in the design, development, manufacture, and support of high performance, single wafer and batch wet chemical processing equipment for use in the fabrication of semiconductor devices. The Company's primary families of tools include electrochemical deposition systems for electroplating copper, gold, solder and other metals and silicon wafer surface preparation systems for cleaning, stripping and etching. The Company's equipment is utilized in semiconductor fabrication front-end and back-end processes, including advanced packaging applications. Headquartered in Kalispell, Montana, Semitool maintains sales and support centers in the United States, Europe and Asia. The Company's stock trades on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol SMTL. Semitool maintains a website at www.semitool.com.

"Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995:

The foregoing discussion contains forward-looking statements related to future financial results. These statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties including, without limitation, risks relating to the benefits to Brooks Automation of purchasing SEMY Engineering, the continued success of SEMY Engineering in the marketplace, the ease of integrating SEMY Engineering into the Brooks business unit structure, the Company's dependence on the cyclical semiconductor industry, the Company's dependence on relatively few customers for a significant portion of its revenues, the Company's reliance on sales to OEM customers and the lengthy sales cycles of those customers, the ability of the Company to continue to successfully develop and market new products and product enhancements on a timely basis, the ability to integrate recent acquisitions into the Company, the highly competitive nature and rapid technological change that characterize the industries in which the Company competes, and other risks and uncertainties described in the Company's reports and registration statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. As a result, there can be no assurance that the Company's future results will not be materially different than those projected. The Company also operates in an industry sector where securities' values are highly volatile and may be influenced by economic and other factors beyond the Company's control. The forward-looking statements contained herein speak only of the Company's expectations as of the date of this press release. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any such statement to reflect any change in the Company's expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based.