Major Asian Foundry Places Multiple-system Follow-on Order For Ultratech Laser Spike Anneal Systems

SAN JOSE, Calif., Dec. 10, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Ultratech, Inc. UTEK, a leading supplier of lithography, laser-processing and inspection systems used to manufacture semiconductor devices and high-brightness LEDs (HB-LEDs), as well as atomic layer deposition (ALD) systems, today announced that it has received a multiple-system, follow-on order for its LSA101 laser spike anneal systems. Ultratech's customer plans to use the LSA101 systems for production at its facility in Asia. This multi-system order is an example of Ultratech's commitment to developing leading technology that provides its global customers with cost and competitive advantages for advanced manufacturing. Ultratech expects to begin shipping the LSA systems from this order in the first quarter of 2016.

Additionally, Ultratech is conducting a review of its Board of Directors with the intention of refreshment to increase stockholder value. The goal of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee is to appoint one or more new Board members with technological expertise.

"Today's foundries are operating in an increasingly challenging landscape, resulting in a stringent selection process for choosing advanced manufacturing equipment that can provide competitive advantages. Leading technologies such as LSA provide a path to improving device performance and are critical for meeting the requirements for device scaling at advanced nodes," said Arthur W. Zafiropoulo, Ultratech Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "To help our customers meet their aggressive technology and product roadmaps we have been working closely with them to provide the most advanced annealing technology with our LSA systems. This multiple-system, follow-on order further validates the capability of Ultratech's LSA systems to provide cost and competitive technology advantages that enable the production of today's and tomorrow's most advanced devices. We look forward to furthering our relationship as well as enabling the business success of this valued customer."

"In addition, we are committed to increasing stockholder value and believe that a Board refreshment will help to ensure that we are acting in the best interest of stockholders," continued Mr. Zafiropoulo.

Ultratech Laser Spike Anneal Systems

The LSA scanning systems have fundamental technical advantages in uniformity, lowest consumable cost, and provide a low-stress processing solution built on the flexible Unity Platform™. The systems' flexible capability and short dwell time, along with excellent process control, delivers superior within-die uniformity and layout-independent process results allowing customers to achieve improved device performance, lower leakage, and improved yield. Ultratech's flagship platform, the LSA101, delivers extendibility for advanced annealing applications, including advanced finFETs. The LSA101 systems are currently in high-volume production for all nodes, including 14-nm, 20-nm, and 28-nm devices.  

Board Refreshment

As part of Ultratech's continued focus on increasing stockholder value, the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee is in the process of identifying new directors for Ultratech's Board. The Committee's goal is to appoint one or more new Board members, including current or recently retired senior level executives with technological expertise. These new Board members will either be additive to or will replace one or more of Ultratech's current directors and the search is expected to continue over the next few months.  

Ultratech has a long history of refreshing the Board to align directors' experience and capabilities with Ultratech's business. From time to time, Ultratech has appointed new independent directors, not including the current search. After completion of the current search, the Committee anticipates continuing to identify additional new director candidates as Ultratech continues to execute on its business strategy.

Safe Harbor
This release includes forward-­looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-­looking statements can generally be identified by words such as "anticipates," "expects," "remains," "thinks," "intends," "believes," "estimates," and similar expressions and include management's current expectation of its longer term prospects for success. These forward-­looking statements are based on our current expectations, estimates, assumptions and projections about our business and industry, and the markets and customers we serve, and they are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that may cause these forward-­looking statements to be inaccurate. Such risks and uncertainties include the timing and possible delays, deferrals and cancellations of orders by customers; quarterly revenue fluctuations; industry and sector cyclicality, instability and unpredictability; market demand for consumer devices utilizing semiconductors produced by our clients; our ability to manage costs; new product introductions, market acceptance of new products and enhanced versions of our existing products; reliability and technical acceptance of our products; our lengthy sales cycles, and the timing of system installations and acceptances; lengthy and costly development cycles for laser ­processing and lithography technologies and applications; competition and consolidation in the markets we serve; improvements, including in cost and technical features, of competitors' products; rapid technological change; pricing pressures and product discounts; our ability to collect receivables; customer and product concentration and lack of product revenue diversification; inventory obsolescence; general economic, financial market and political conditions and other factors outside of our control; domestic and international tax policies; cybersecurity threats in the United States and globally that could impact our industry, customers, and technologies; and other factors described in our SEC reports including our Annual Report on Form 10­K filed for the year ended December 31, 2014 and our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed for the quarterly period ended October 3, 2015. Due to these and other factors, the statements, historical results and percentage relationships set forth herein are not necessarily indicative of the results of operations for any future period. We undertake no obligation to revise or update any forward­-looking statements to reflect any event or circumstance that may arise after the date of this release.

About Ultratech: Ultratech, Inc. UTEK designs, builds and markets manufacturing systems for the global technology industry. Founded in 1979, Ultratech serves three core markets: front­end semiconductor, back­end semiconductor, and nanotechnology. The company is the leading supplier of lithography products for bump packaging of integrated circuits and high­ brightness LEDs. Ultratech is also the market leader and pioneer of laser spike anneal technology for the production of advanced semiconductor devices. In addition, the company offers solutions leveraging its proprietary coherent gradient sensing (CGS) technology to the semiconductor wafer inspection market and provides atomic layer deposition (ALD) tools to leading research organizations, including academic and industrial institutions. Visit Ultratech online at: www.ultratech.com.

(UTEK­-G)

Unity Platform is a trademark of Ultratech, Inc.

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SOURCE Ultratech, Inc.