Epion Corporation Announces ATP Award.

BEDFORD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 7, 1998--Epion Corporation announced today that they have won a $2 million U.S. Department of Commerce Advanced Technology Program (ATP) award for development of a Gas Cluster Ion Beam Manufacturing Tool for Next-Generation Semiconductor Devices. The ATP is a rigorously competitive cost-sharing program designed to foster emerging technologies leading to revolutionary new products, processes or services for the world's markets.

Epion will adapt new gas cluster ion beam technology to solve critical problems related to deposition and atomic scale smoothing of ultrathin dielectric layers which are to be needed in future generations of integrated circuits. These problems have been identified as 'potential showstoppers' by the Semiconductor Industry Association in its 1997 National Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors. Allen Kirkpatrick, President of Epion, stated "If our ATP project is successful, we anticipate sales of manufacturing equipment employing GCIB processing should reach several hundred million dollars annually within a decade."

The concept of using beams of gas cluster ions for atomic scale processing of surfaces originated at the Ion Beam Engineering Experimental Laboratory of Kyoto University under support from the Japan Science and Technology Corporation. Epion has worked in close collaboration with the Kyoto University researchers to develop GCIB equipment. Under the ATP program, Epion will participate in joint development involving semiconductor technology researchers at Sematech, the University of Texas at Austin, North Carolina State University, the University of Houston and Santa Clara University.

Epion is developing advanced technology for manufacturing of smaller, faster, and more economical microdevice products and is the world's only supplier of commercial gas cluster ion beam (GCIB) equipment.