Nikon Appoints Three New Directors

Business Wire, August 14, 1995

BELMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 14, 1995--Nikon Precision Inc. (NPI), the North American wafer stepper subsidiary of Nikon Corporation, today announced that it has promoted two employees to newly-created director positions reporting to Dr. Ronald Miller, vice president of stepper technology and applications. Eric R. Johnson is now the director of technology and Sean J. McNamara is director of applications engineering.

In addition, the Nikon Precision Research Center, the North American R&D center of Nikon Corporation, also announced that it has appointed W. Thomas Novak to director of instrument design and development, reporting to Dr. Gil Varnell, senior vice president and chief technical officer.

"Both Johnson and McNamara will contribute much as directors in the technology and applications engineering groups. They've each been with Nikon for many years so they understand the wafer stepper technology and exactly what our world class semiconductor customers are looking for from us," said Miller.

As director of technology, Johnson, 33, is responsible for managing the senior engineers and technical managers that help procure, disseminate, enhance and characterize Nikon's lithography technology in the U.S. Previously, he was manager of the group. Before joining NPI seven years ago, Johnson spent four years with VLSI Technology as senior process engineer where he was responsible for specifying the company's first production use of a Canon stepper system. Johnson is a Stanford University graduate with a B.S. degree in chemistry and he's a member of the SPIE. He lives in Los Gatos, Calif. with his two daughters.

McNamara, as the new director of applications engineering, is responsible for supporting all U.S. customers' wafer stepper systems, adapting the systems to customer environments, meeting their production requirements and planning for their future needs. He will manage the applications engineers in the West, Central and East Coast regions. McNamara, 34, has been with NPI for 11 years and previously was West Coast applications manager. He holds a B.S. degree in chemical engineering and a B.A. in humanities with a concentration in literature from Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York. As a member of SPIE, he published a paper entitled "Enhanced Global Alignment for Production Optical Lithography" by Steve Sloaker, Sean McNamara, et al. in 1988. He lives in Foster City, Calif.

The Nikon Precision Research Center (NPRC) promoted Novak to director of instrument design and development. Novak, 50, is now responsible for managing projects in the United States related to several future products of Nikon Corporation. He is responsible for managing senior engineers of various disciplines required for modern precision design. Previously, he spent two years as manager of NPRC's instrument design and development.

"My goal is for NPRC to develop technologically superior product concepts and determine how to turn them into a practical reality that Nikon customers can take advantage of," said Novak.

Novak has over 25 years of experience in engineering management and semiconductor lithography. He comes to NPRC from Kavon Technology, a consulting organization that he founded that brought together experts in various disciplines to develop, manufacture and service products. Before that, he spent nine years with KLA Instruments as director of engineering for the RAPID Division. Prior to KLA, Novak was vice president of engineering and chief technical officer for Micronix Corporation.

Novak has B.S. and M.S. degrees in physics from Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. He holds 10 patents and has published many technical articles and conference papers. He lives in Hillsborough, Calif. with his wife and two children.

Nikon Precision Inc., Belmont, California, is the North American subsidiary of Nikon Corporation, a leading supplier of microelectronic manufacturing equipment. In the Americas, Nikon Precision provides service, training, technical support, sales, and marketing for Nikon's equipment serving the wafer, photomask, flat panel display, and thin film magnetic head industries.

In Europe, Nikon Precision Europe (NPE), Langen/Frankfurt, Germany, provides the same support. NPRC, Nikon Corporation's U.S.-based research and development center, focuses on creating high precision instruments for use in photolithography. Nikon offers the most extensive selection of production-worthy steppers in the industry, including g-line, i-line, and excimer laser DUV products.

CONTACT: Nikon Precision Inc.

Nancy Stojowski, 415/508-4674

or

Martell Communications

Colleen Martell, 408/275-6231