ESI Announces the Acquisition of MicroVision Corporation

Electro Scientific Industries acquired MicroVision Corporation. The terms of the acquisition include exchanging 1.02 million shares of ESI common stock for all of the capital stock of MicroVision and certain business assets utilized by the company. The transaction will be accounted for as a pooling-of-interests.

MicroVision, headquartered in Minneapolis, MN., offers a line of integrated, vision-based inspection and automation solutions for use in semiconductor front-end and back-end applications. Revenue for the year ending Dec. 31, 1998 was $14 million.

ESI, headquartered in Portland, Oregon, designs and manufactures products used in electronics manufacturing including: laser manufacturing systems for semiconductor yield improvement; production and test equipment for the manufacture of surface mount ceramic capacitors; laser trim systems for precise electrical tuning of circuits; precision laser and mechanical drilling systems for electronic interconnection; and machine vision systems.