Novellus acquires Gasonics

<%=company2%> (San Jose, CA) announced that it will acquire all outstanding shares of Gasonics (San Jose) in a stock-for-stock merger transaction valued at approximately US$347 million. Each share of Gasonics common stock outstanding as of the closing date will be converted into 0.52 shares of Novellus common stock on a fixed exchange ratio basis. Novellus CFO Bob Smith said he expects the transaction to close in the first quarter of 2001. It will be immediately accretive to earnings, with Gasonics expected to earn $0.05-$0.09 per Novellus share in 2001.

Richard Hill, chairman and CEO of Novellus, explained that, at smaller feature sizes and higher aspect ratios, surface preparation becomes a barrier to the extendibility and reproducibility of deposition processes. Residual surface contamination can affect the deposition and adhesion of subsequent dielectric or metal layers. In particular, Hill said, porous dielectric materials are not compatible with wet chemistry-based residue removal methods. Gasonics will form the nucleus of a new Novellus surface preparation group, headed by Gasonics president and CEO Asuri Raghavan.

"We see surface preparation as a key manufacturing technology in the future," Hill said, "with a direct impact on the yield and performance of the interconnect structure. We believe our engineering resources, coupled with Gasonics' depth of knowledge and market leadership in surface preparation, will enable us to rapidly bring new technologies to the market." As a member of the Damascus Alliance, Gasonics has already been working closely with Novellus on issues related to copper dual damascene integration.

Raghavan said that approximately 70% of Gasonics' revenues currently come from the United States and Europe. Novellus has a strong presence in Asia, particularly at foundries. Raghavan expects to leverage Novellus' existing Asian infrastructure to increase Gasonics' share of that market. "Gasonics already shares some common cultural values with Novellus, including a focus on productivity, manufacturing performance, and an emphasis on design simplicity in our products," said Raghavan. "We believe that the depth of Novellus' hardware, process and software engineering resources will help us accelerate our new products to market."

Edited by Katherine Derbyshire
Managing Editor, Semiconductor Online