Jay,
You can breathe easily, earnings won't be reported until July 25th. ;^)
Looks like PRIA got a nice high margin software sale.
Ian.
++++++++++++++++
PRI Automation's EquipeSoft Equipment Control System Selected by Integrated
Process Systems of Korea The Complete 'Lab-To-Fab' Equipment Control System
Speeds Deployment of Front-end Processes to Full Production Environments
BILLERICA, Mass., Jun 28, 2000 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- PRI Automation, Inc.
(Nasdaq: PRIA), the global leader in advanced automation systems and software to
the semiconductor industry, today announced that its EquipeSoft(TM) equipment
control system has been selected by IPS Ltd. of Korea as their sole system
software.
The EquipeSoft equipment control system enables front-end processes developed in
the "lab" to be quickly migrated to the "fab" production line in the shortest
time. Using the EquipeSoft system's wide range of product features and high
reliability, manufacturers can cut deployment times from the current industry
standard of two to three years to less than one year in most instances.
"The installation of EquipeSoft into our Etch, CVD and PVD cluster tool products
ends a 5-year search for production-capable system software," said CH Choi,
General Manager, Software Engineering, IPS. "The complete feature set, the
engineering support available from PRI, and the portability of EquipeSoft to
other platforms make it a very complete package."
"Our OEM customers are looking for an equipment integration platform that can
quickly and easily bring new process technology into a full production
environment," stated Ed Wagner, vice president and general manager of PRI
Automation's OEM Systems Division. "EquipeSoft sets a new standard in equipment
integration because of its reliability, ease-of-use and portability across a
variety of wafer handling platforms. We estimate that there are roughly 100 OEM
companies in this market with needs similar to IPS for this class of software
product so we see great potential for moving EquipeSoft into the market."
IPS recently shipped 4 EquipeSoft-controlled systems to a major Korean
semiconductor manufacturer, and will retrofit in place 5 additional systems. The
shipments cap a short seven-month development effort.
The EquipeSoft system complements in-house development resources with the
accompanying software engineering resources for application development using a
graphical development tool suite. For targeted sub-system behaviors, the
graphical tools can reduce development time by 70% or more. In addition to
automated production control, the system allows manual control of substrate
movement, vacuum system, and process execution. |
