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Technology Stocks : Read-Rite -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: grogger who wrote (4056)	9/22/1998 12:44:00 AM
From: Mark Oliver	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5058

They buy this equipment to produce GMR. Why buy the equipment if you don't have orders? Regards, Mark Veeco Receives $2M Order From Read-Rite Veeco Process Equipment Enables Read-Rite To Demonstrate Areal Density Record PLAINVIEW, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 21, 1998-- Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ: VECO - news) today announced it has received a $2 million order for the Veeco IBD-350 Ion Beam Deposition System from Read-Rite Corporation (NASDAQ: RDRT - news). The system will be used for advanced magnetoresistive (MR) and giant magnetoresistive (GMR) thin film magnetic head (TFMH) production. Shipment is expected in the fourth quarter of 1998. In recent days, Read-Rite announced achieving yet another data storage world record in GMR thin film magnetic head areal density. Veeco reports that the achievement of this milestone was partially due to the enabling technology of Veeco's ion beam etch, (IBE), ion beam deposition (IBD) and physical vapor deposition (PVD) equipment. Read-Rite's fully integrated pico GMR heads capable of areal densities of 13.5 gigabits per square inch, which supports over 18 gigabytes per 3.5 inch disk, more than 5 times the per disk capacity of today's leading-edge commercially available drives. The heads were manufactured in their Fremont, California production facility. ''The demonstration of this areal density was facilitated by our use of state-of-the-art technology and process support from Veeco'', stated Dr. Subrata Dey, Read-Rite's Vice President of Advanced Technologies. ''Veeco's process equipment is utilized in the etch and deposition of the critical films in the read-write sensor.'' Emmanuel Lakios, President of Veeco's Process Equipment Group, commented, ''Our ability to provide customers with integrated solutions utilizing ion beam deposition, ion beam etch and physical vapor deposition, has been instrumental in achieving the densities needed for MR/GMR thin film magnetic heads. This order from Read-Rite demonstrates the growing acceptance of our Ion Beam and PVD deposition technology for thin film magnetic head manufacturing.'' Veeco Instruments Inc., headquartered in Plainview, New York, is a worldwide leader in Metrology tools for the data storage and semiconductor industries, and Process Equipment etch and deposition tools for the data storage industry. Manufacturing and engineering facilities are located in New York, California and Arizona. Global sales and service offices are located throughout the United States, Europe, Japan and Asia Pacific. Read-Rite Corporation is one of the world's leading independent manufacturers of MR recording heads, head gimbal assemblies (HGAs) and head stack assemblies (HSAs) for disk drives and magnetoresistive heads for tape drives. The company is headquartered in Milpitas, California and has operations in Japan, Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore. To the extent that this news release discusses expectations about market conditions or about market acceptance and future sales of the Company's products, or otherwise makes statements about the future, such statements are forward-looking and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made. These factors include the cyclical nature of the data storage and semiconductor industries, risks associated with the acceptance of new products by individual customers and by the marketplace, and other factors discussed in the Business Description and Management's Discussion and Analysis sections of the Company's Report on Form 10-K and Annual Report to Shareholders.