VAH SARKISSIAN was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of
FEI Company in May 1998 and Chairman of the Board in 2002. Before
joining FEI, Mr. Sarkissian was President and CEO of Metrologix Inc., an
electron beam metrology company that was acquired by KLA-Tencor. Prior
to Metrologix, he was President and COO of Silicon Valley Group and was
President and CEO of SVG Lithography Systems, a subsidiary of SVG, where
he led the Micrascan Step and Scan Deep UV lithography business. Prior
to SVG he was Vice President of Data General Corporation and was
responsible for the semiconductor and telecommunication products
divisions where he led a major telecommunications venture with Nippon
Telephone and Telegraph. Mr. Sarkissian was also instrumental in the
incubation of Actel and Power Integration at Data General. He has held
several technical and management positions with semiconductor companies,
including AMD where he was a key founding member of the memory and
microprocessor products businesses. He has also served on the Boards of
several high tech startup companies. Mr. Sarkissian holds a BSEE from
Northrup University and an MSEE from the University of Santa Clara.
sector – semiconductor equipment
WAW604) would you give us a capsule summary of FEI Company? Mr.
Sarkissian: FEI Company is a ‘tools for a nanotech’ company. We build,
manufacture, sell and support a broad range of equipment that enables
nanotechnology driven companies to be able to create new devices, new
materials and new products for a variety of industries, a broad range of
industries, including semiconductors and data storage. About half of our
business is classified as the research and industry market, which
includes companies, universities and institutes that are dealing with
nano materials and nano devices. So we are a broad-based ‘tools for
nanotech’ company. We have a rich history of technology, with IP that
has developed over the last 50 years. The roots of our technology
includes expertise from Philips Research, because we bought the electron
optics business of NV Philips in the Netherlands. The original FEI
Company is where we developed the technology of focused ion beams
(FIBs). Through acquisitions, we built the company from its modest
startup days 30 years ago as a small FIB company into a systems for
nanotech company. We have grown from a very small company to about a
close to $400 million run rate by now, through development of
technologies and products. We are a global company. We have operations
in the US, in Europe, Asia, and we have built a very successful and
profitable company. We have stayed profitable through the very severe
economic downturn of 2001 and 2002. We continue to invest heavily in
research and development and manufacturing to be able to sustain our
tools for nanotech growth in the key markets that we identify, which are
growth markets.
