SELA Adds New Japanese Distributorship.

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 19, 1999--SELA, manufacturer of SEM and TEM sample preparation systems for the semiconductor industry, today announced the selection of a new company to distribute and service SELA products throughout Japan.

The new company, SELASTAR CORPORATION took over as SELA's distributor at the beginning of this year. SELASTAR replaces Innotech Corporation as the formal distributor of SELA products in Japan, and will be managed by a veteran two-executive team with a combined 60 years of experience in the semiconductor equipment and materials business.

Shinji Matsumura, the company's executive board director, is responsible for both sales and service performed by SELASTAR. For the past seven years, Matsumura had been an assistant manager of business development at Innotech Corporation, helping to introduce to the Japanese market Orbot System Limited, Semiconductor Engineering Laboratory, Genesis, CSD and Ultratech Stepper. Prior to joining Innotech in 1991, Matsumura spent nearly 20 years with Tokyo Electron Limited (TEL) and Tegal Japan Inc.

Archie Ishikawa, president of SELASTAR, has been a board member of Innotech since it was founded in 1987. Prior to that, Ishikawa served as a representative director of Micronix Systems Corporation, a Japanese subsidiary of U.S.-based X-Ray Lithography System Manufacturer. Ishikawa also worked at Tokyo Electron Limited (TEL) from 1970 to 1982.

"SELA's rising popularity and increasing stature within Japan made it practical to establish a company based solely around selling and servicing SELA products," Matsumura said. "Customers in this critical market for SELA can now be assured that they are dealing with a distributor that specializes in SELA products."

SELASTAR CORPORATION is located at 2572-1-1-512 Shinohara-cho Kouhoku-ku Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa, 222-0026, Japan. It can be reached via telephone at 81-45-439-5130 or via fax at 81-45-439-5131.

About SELA

Since 1994, SELA's unique sample preparation technology has played a key role in top fabs worldwide. SELA pioneered microcleaving technology for cross-section preparation, targeted at Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) analysis applications.

The company is focused on the development, manufacturing, and marketing of its patented technology. With the recent addition of the SELA STRATEM and TEMstation, the company has bolstered its microcleaving technology by streamlining the Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) sample preparation process.

These comprehensive solutions for both SEM and TEM sample preparation support applications in failure analysis, process monitoring and R&D.