Cognex Further Extends Industry-Leading PatMax Technology.

NATICK, Mass. -- Cognex Corporation (NASDAQ - CGNX), the world's leading supplier of machine vision systems, announced today at Semicon West that it has extended the capability of its industry-leading PatMax(R) geometric pattern matching technology with new enhancements for pattern location and alignment. These new enhancements reduce equipment and integration costs, as well as manual operator intervention, increasing throughput in challenging semiconductor and electronic manufacturing applications.

The following PatMax enhancements are now available on Cognex PC-based programmable vision systems:

--PatMax XLC (eXtremely Low Contrast)--PatMax XLC improves the ability of PatMax to find barely visible objects or patterns in grainy or faint images, like those produced by powerful magnification techniques such as Scanning Electron Microscopes (SEMs). PatMax XLC improves wafer alignment for metrology tools, and minimizes the need for expensive lighting and optics upgrades in order to analyze noisy, low-contrast images.

--PatMax SA (Scene Alignment)--PatMax SA provides partial-match alignment that eliminates the need for the entire pattern to be present in an image in order to obtain accurate results. By enabling portions of the trained model to be outside the field of view, PatMax SA reduces manual operator intervention, increasing throughput in applications such as defect review stations.

"PatMax has become the most widely used software for semiconductor wafer alignment throughout the world, and we continue to invest in this technology which is so important to our customers," said Jim Hoffmaster, Chief Operating Officer for Cognex. "These new enhancements, and other recent developments, such as PatInspect(R), Synthetic PatMax, and PatFlex(R), address our customers' most challenging alignment and inspection needs."

Cognex Corporation designs, develops, manufactures, and markets machine vision systems and machine vision sensors, or computers that can "see." Cognex is the world's leader in the machine vision industry, having shipped more than 200,000 vision systems, representing over $1.5 billion in cumulative revenue, since the company's founding in 1981. Cognex's Modular Vision Systems Division, headquartered in Natick, Massachusetts, specializes in machine vision systems which are used for automating the manufacture of a wide range of discrete items and for assuring their quality. Cognex's Surface Inspection Systems Division, headquartered in Alameda, California, specializes in machine vision systems which are used for inspecting the surfaces of products manufactured in a continuous fashion, such as metals, paper, and plastics. In addition to its corporate headquarters in Natick, Massachusetts, Cognex also has regional offices located throughout North America, Japan, Europe, and Southeast Asia. Visit Cognex on-line at http://www.cognex.com.