!!! Press Release !!!

Revenues increasing

AIXTRON AG, the world´s leading manufacturer of equipment for the production of compound semiconductors, continues on its fast growth track. Up to the end of the 3rd Quarter, revenues increased to 48.8 million deutsch marks, exceeding, after only 9 months, 1996´s total revenues of 47.7 million marks. The company expects to achieve total revenues of around 75.5 million marks for 1997 which is an increase of 58% compared to last year.

Over 50% increase in profits

Earnings and profits have increased particularly strongly. Operating results increased to 10.6 million marks up to the end of the 3rd Quarter. Taking profits and interest charges into account this results in earnings before taxes of 10.8 million marks - a 52 percent increase compared to the total earnings before taxes for 1996 (7.1 million marks). Earnings after taxes, were 4,3 million marks after only 9 months of the current year.

New customers, new employees, new service location

In the first nine months of 1997 AIXTRON was able to further expand its leading position in its three key markets - USA, Asia and Europe. New systems were sold to two universities and a leading manufacturer in compound semiconductor technology, among others, in Japan as well as to UEC, CSIST, Epistar, VPEC (all in Taiwan) and Samsung Electromechanics (Korea). In the USA AIXTRON equipment went to ITT Night Vision, TECSTAR, Rockwell and NASA, in Europe to Thomson as well as to research institutes such as the Fraunhofer Institute, the Hahn-Meitner-Institute and EPFL in Lausanne. In Los Angeles AIXTRON opened a further office in order to offer its customers on the west coast faster local service. In Taiwan and Japan stock levels were further increased in order to provide faster delivery of spare parts. The fast growth is also reflected in the increased number of employees. Since the beginning of the year AIXTRON has hired twenty eight new employees - in the last quarter alone, ten employees were hired, two of whom are apprentices. At the end of September AIXTRON had a total of 105 employees. Around 35 additional students and part-time workers are also employed.

New research projects

In the first nine months of this year AIXTRON has commenced participation in a number of important new research projects.

• Within the RAINBOW project, AIXTRON, together with partners from industrie and science, is researching production processes for ultra bright blue and green light emitting diodes.
• The goal of the LAQUANI-Project, part of an ESPRIT program, is the production of nitride materials for blue-emitting diodes.
• Within the framework of INBORN, special protective coatings for use in medical and other applications are being developed.
• WIDE GAP CPV focusses on research into new materials to produce more efficient solar cells.

Successful IPO

AIXTRON´s IPO on the New Market stock exchange in Frankfurt in November was highly successful. Despite turbulence on the Asian markets the shares were strongly oversubscribed. The entire Green Shoe was issued only two weeks after the IPO. The first quoted share price was 40% above the selling price of 100 marks. Since then the share price development has been extremely positive and closed at 203 marks on the 3rd December 1997.

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© AIXTRON AG December 4, 1997

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