Credence Systems Corp. announces completion of EPRO merger.

FREMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 15, 1995--Credence Systems Corp. announced today that it had completed the previously announced merger of EPRO, the memory tester manufacturer.

EPRO will now operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Credence. EPRO has an installed base of over 1,000 memory testers at major semiconductor industry leaders, including Samsung, Sanyo, Atmel, UMC, Texas Instruments, SGS Thompson, MXIC and Micron.

As consideration for the merger, Credence issued to EPRO security holders an aggregate of 1,370,861 shares and options to purchase shares of Credence common stock in exchange for all the equity of EPRO. The merger will be accounted for as a pooling of interests.

"We are very pleased that through the merger with EPRO we will gain a position in the memory equipment market and serve all major sectors of the component automatic test equipment (ATE) business," said Elwood Spedden, president and chief executive officer of Credence Systems. "We believe that combining EPRO's test business and technology, with that of Credence, will expand the breadth of our product offerings to both existing and new customers. The proprietary Credence technologies for stabilizing CMOS for use in precision ATE will now be applied to logic, mixed-signal and memory test products."

Jim Healy, executive vice president and chief operating officer added, "The merger of EPRO will provide us with an entry into the non-volatile memory market, specifically FLASH. We are very enthusiastic about merging EPRO's management, technology and high-quality design team into Credence."

Credence Systems Corp. is a leading manufacturer of automatic test equipment (ATE) that serves a broad spectrum of the worldwide semiconductor industry's testing needs. Credence's wide range of product offerings now include test capabilities for digital, mixed-signal, and non-volatile memory semiconductors. Credence utilizes its patented CMOS technologies to design products that provide a lower total cost of ownership while meeting the increasingly demanding performance requirements of today's ATE market. The Company is headquartered in Fremont, Calif. with manufacturing in Beaverton, Ore. Credence is listed on the NASDAQ National Market under the symbol CMOS.

Credence Systems will hold a conference call for analysts and traders to discuss the EPRO merger shortly.

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Note to Editors: Credence Systems and EPRO are trademarks of Credence Systems Corp. All other products or company names mentioned are trademarks of their respective owners.

CONTACT: Credence Systems Corp.

Woody Spedden or Richard Okumoto, 510/657-7400