!!! Press Release !!!

AIXTRON expands its patent portfolio for Atomic Vapor Deposition (AVD)

Aachen, January 23 2003 – AIXTRON announces the acquisition of a patent and license portfolio for its TriJet Technology, from the French company J.I.P.ELEC. This expansion of AIXTRON’s existent patent portfolio further enhances the technological capabilities of the TriJet Technology within the AIXTRON Tricent system. TriJet Technology enables the highly reproducible delivery and evaporation of liquid precursors, required when within Tricent systems AIXTRON’s proprietary AVD techniques are used in the deposition of Oxide-based materials. This advanced technology offers significant advantages over current processes available on the market place today.

TriJet Technology is an integral part of AIXTRON’s Tricent and Atomic Vapor (AVD) technology, which is the only technology in the world that combines all the advantages of MOCVD processes with the control of atomic layer thickness. AVD is proven to enable interface controlled growth with atomic precision at high wafer throughput. This concept is rapidly being recognized as having a key role in meeting the increasingly complex requirements of highly integrated CMOS component devices.

To date, AIXTRON has held exclusive licenses from J.I.P.ELEC for this technology in conjunction with a 7.4% stake in the equity of this supplier of modules and systems for semiconductor processing. In this transaction, AIXTRON has divested its shareholding back to J.I.P.ELEC, acquired the TriJet related patent and license portfolio and has granted patent licenses for niche applications back to J.I.P.ELEC.

In addition, J.I.P.ELEC also assigned a previously exclusive license for a patent owned by the governmental research institute CNRS (France) to AIXTRON. Again, AIXTRON has granted a sub-license for certain technology niche applications back to J.I.P.ELEC. The transaction follows the recently announced acquisition of J.I.P.ELEC by Qualiflow, France.

In continuance of AIXTRON’s outsourcing strategy, Qualiflow will continue to produce the TriJet after the acquisition of J.I.P.ELEC by Qualiflow as the exclusive supplier for this advanced sub system assembly.

Tim McEntee, Executive Vice President and COO of AIXTRON comments: "The acquisition of these patents and the exclusive licenses from J.I.P.ELEC is another important step forward in securing and expanding our technological leadership – one of our most important strategic goals. We are extremely pleased to have acquired these essential intellectual property rights for such an important component of our Tricent Technology. We are looking forward to working closely with Qualiflow in the future, to further optimize TriJet technology for our Atomic Vapor Deposition (AVD)."

AIXTRON’s fully automated Tricent CVD Equipment has been especially developed for the manufacture of materials, that will play a key role in the realization of next generation integrated circuits for data-processing and transmission techniques. These highly advanced circuits contain 54 million transistors in critical dimensions below 100nm (1nm=1 millionth part of 1mm) and 9km of internal connections to the chip. For years now, many AIXTRON customers such as ST Microelectronics (France), NDL(Taiwan), Fraunhofer Institute, (Germany), FZ Jülich (Germany), University of Magdeburg (Germany) and the University of Liverpool (UK), have installed Tricent Systems and have already achieved very promising results. Using AIXTRON’s renowned HeteroWafer Technology, the Tricent System can also be used for the manufacture of further key future materials such as SiGe and Strained Silicon.

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© AIXTRON AG, January 2003

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