Brooks Automation Inc. Signs Letter of Intent to Purchase e-diagnostic Infrastructure from KLA-Tencor, Inc.

Business/Technology Editors

CHELMSFORD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 11, 2001

Acquisition Positions Brooks to Lead the Industry In e-diagnostics

Brooks Automation, Inc. (NASDAQ:BRKS) announced today that it has signed a letter of intent by which Brooks would acquire the intellectual property for the e-diagnostic infrastructure developed by KLA-Tencor for the deployment of its iSupport(TM) program. With this acquisition, Brooks will be strategically positioned to lead the industry in this rapidly emerging market and KLA-Tencor will be able to shift its emphasis from infrastructure development to enhancing its iSupport offering and proliferating iSupport across its installed base.

"KLA-Tencor has shown clear leadership in the e-diagnostic space," said Robert J. Therrien, President and Chief Executive Officer of Brooks Automation. "They have combined innovation and adherence to the emerging industry standards to provide the strongest offering in the industry. We are particularly pleased to have KLA-Tencor as the flagship customer for this solution. KLA-Tencor has established industry leadership by implementing e-diagnostics across its product line and has realized substantial efficiencies in their customer support operations. With orders from 13 top global semiconductor manufacturers, including 5 from 300mm fabs, iSupport has established market leadership with chipmakers. The decision by Teradyne, the world's largest supplier of automatic test equipment, to use the same infrastructure as iSupport for a pilot implementation on their products confirms the importance of this leading technology and gets us off to a good start with leading OEMs (original equipment manufacturers)."

With e-diagnostic programs, such as iSupport, service and support teams can remotely access their tools in customer fabs in real-time to diagnose and resolve problems when they occur via a secure on-line connection, which is under the customer's control at all times. This capability enables the technical support staff--regardless of where they are located-- to rapidly resolve problems and cost-effectively provide applications support anywhere in the world.

"Chipmakers and equipment manufacturers alike are focused on improving fab and equipment efficiency with e-diagnostics. But having a standard system for all tools in the fab has been a key need that has yet to emerge," said Dan Hutcheson, President of VLSI Research Inc. "iSupport represents the first true automation of the service and support function. The adoption of iSupport by 13 of the top chipmakers and two leading OEM's, KLA-Tencor and Teradyne, has certainly been a significant milestone for iSupport. But one has to applaud the wisdom of KLA-Tencor in moving the e-diagnostic infrastructure, because it eliminates any competitive issues that would hinder its success. This move represents a major change in the industry's infrastructure for e-diagnostics. Brooks' position as a leading independent third party tool platform supplier will foster iSupport's blossoming into an industry-wide standard."

"With Brooks' focus on factory automation hardware and software, marketing the e-diagnostics technology we developed to implement our iSupport fits extremely well with their business model," stated Ken Schroeder, KLA-Tencor's president and CEO. "This divestiture provides us with a great return on our existing e-diagnostics investment, while allowing us to shift and increase our R&D expenditures from infrastructure development to the actual implementation of the iSupport program. Our customers will benefit through enhanced e-diagnostic service and support. At the same time, we benefit by building on the competitive advantage we derive from this program."

"The integration of e-diagnostic infrastructure into Brooks' family of automation software and hardware solutions will encourage the adoption of e-diagnostics throughout the industry," said Jim Pelusi, Senior Vice President of Brooks Automation. "We plan on instrumenting our own hardware and software products with e-diagnostics. Our goal is to greatly simplify the adoption for equipment manufacturers struggling to keep up with emerging standards and allow end-users to reap the benefits of dramatically reduced equipment repair time."

The acquisition of the e-diagnostics infrastructure intellectual property will be structured as a purchase of assets payable in cash and Brooks Common Stock, and is targeted to close by the end of May 2001. Completion of the transaction is contingent upon the parties reaching agreement on the terms of a definitive agreement, approval of the final terms by their respective boards of directors, and satisfaction of other customary conditions.

About KLA-Tencor: KLA-Tencor is the world leader in yield management and process control solutions for semiconductor manufacturing and related industries. Headquartered in San Jose, Calif., the company has sales and service offices around the world. An S&P 500 company, KLA-Tencor is traded on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol KLAC. Additional information about the company is available on the Internet at http://www.kla-tencor.com

About Teradyne: Teradyne (NYSE: TER) is the world's largest supplier of automatic test systems and high performance interconnect systems for the electronics, telecommunications and Internet industries. Teradyne products are used to test semiconductors, printed circuit board assemblies telephone lines and broadband networks. Teradyne's backplane assemblies and high-density, high-bandwidth connectors are used in the communications and computing systems central to the Internet infrastructure. In 2000, the company had sales of $3.0 billion and there are currently more than 9600 employees. Teradyne's World Wide Web address is www.teradyne.com.

About 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.

"Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: The foregoing discussion contains forward-looking statements related to future financial results, future performance and market trends. These statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties including, without limitation, the risk that the acquisition of e-diagnostic product line, iSupport may for any reason not be completed, the risk that the contemplated benefits of the acquisition may not be realized, that e-diagnostics will not be adopted by the marketplace as anticipated or smoothly integrated into the Company's products, rapid changes in market demand and the Company's ability to react accordingly, risks relating to 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, including for the 300mm market, 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.