Flanders, NJ, June 3, 2003 - Rudolph Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: RTEC), a leading provider of process control equipment for thin film measurement and macro defect inspection during Integrated Circuit (IC) manufacturing, today announced that one of Taiwan's leading foundry companies, having recognized the advantages of Rudolph's MetaPULSE-II™ technology, has placed a repeat tool order scheduled for delivery in the next 60 days.
"This repeat order for our latest generation metal film measurement tool, MetaPULSE-II, reinforces our product development strategy for 90-nanometer and smaller technology nodes. It also highlights Rudolph's importance to the foundries as they continue to invest in next-generation tools," commented Nathan Little, Vice President of Operations. "Furthermore, we are confident that our MP II will increasingly be the tool of choice for leading manufacturers as more of them begin selecting copper metallization with low-κ dielectrics as their approach to meet higher-speed and lower-power requirements of advanced devices."
MetaPULSE-II is a completely redesigned second-generation PULSE™ Technology system. Only Rudolph's unique sonar metrology provides production-worthy on-product opaque measurements of the thinnest to the thickest films used in state-of-the-art semiconductor manufacturing. PULSE™ can simultaneously determine the individual thickness of five or more layers in a multi-layer metal (MLM) film stack. MetaPULSE-II achieves higher throughput and better repeatability especially when measuring copper interconnect structures in very low-κ and ultra-low-κ interlayer dielectrics (ILD). As barrier layer and ILD film thicknesses decrease to tens of Angstroms the need for MetaPULSE-II increases.
About Rudolph Technologies
Rudolph Technologies is a worldwide leader in the design, development, manufacture and support of high-performance process control metrology systems used by semiconductor device manufacturers. The Company provides a full-fab solution through its families of proprietary systems for metrology applications used throughout the device manufacturing process. Rudolph's product development has successfully anticipated and addressed many emerging trends that are driving the semiconductor industry's growth. The Company's success in creating complementary metrology applications through aggressive research and development is key to Rudolph's strategy for continued technological and market leadership.
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those projected due to a number of risks, including, but not limited to, the impact of the slowdown in the overall economy, the uncertainty of the current global political environment, the potential for terrorist attacks, the potential business disruptions due to infectious diseases such as SARS, changes in customer demands for our existing and new products, the timing, cancellation or delay of customer orders and shipments, the timing of revenue recognition of shipments, potential difficulties we could experience in completing the integration of ISOA, new product offerings from our competitors, changes in or an inability to execute Rudolph Technologies' business strategy, unanticipated manufacturing or supply problems, and changes in tax rules. Rudolph Technologies cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. The matters discussed in this press release also involve risks and uncertainties summarized under the heading "Risk Factors" in Rudolph Technologies' Form 10-K filed for the year ended December 31, 2002. These factors are updated from time to time through the filing of reports and registration statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Rudolph Technologies does not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking information contained in this press release.