03.06.2004 17:54:50 CET

ASM International N.V. Completes Acquisition of NuTool, Inc.

Bilthoven, the Netherlands, and Milpitas, California, June 3, 2004 - ASM International N.V. (NASDAQ: ASMI and Euronext Amsterdam: ASM) said today that it has completed the acquisition of NuTool, Inc., a privately-held semiconductor equipment company located in Milpitas, California. 
As indicated in the March 2, 2004 announcement of its agreement to acquire NuTool, ASMI has purchased the 85% of NuTool not already owned by ASMI, in exchange for ASMI common stock.  The number of ASMI shares issued at closing was 1,962,282 or 3.9 % of the currently outstanding shares.  In addition, ASMI issued replacement employee stock options to NuTool employees to purchase an aggregate of 57,720 shares of ASMI common stock and ASMI may issue up to an additional 806,375 shares, or 1.6 % of its currently outstanding shares over the next three years based on NuTool's achievement of various performance targets.
Arthur del Prado, president and CEO of ASM International commented, "With the completion of ASMI's acquisition of NuTool today, we at ASMI are delighted to have solidified this vital strategic initiative that we believe will have far reaching benefits for both ASMI and NuTool, as it raises our company's competitive standing in back-end of line (BEOL).  With its breakthrough electrochemical mechanical deposition, or ECMDÔ technologies, NuTool brings our company a unique capability that complements ASMI's suite of metals and dielectric film deposition technologies, which includes our patented AuroraÒ low-k film, and provides ASMI with the planar copper deposition and removal technology required for integration of ultra and extreme low-k films. Having collaborated with our associates at NuTool for the past two years on the integration of our technologies, we are confident that this amplification of our BEOL roadmap will accelerate adoption of our overall interconnect offering."
            Homayoun Talieh, President of NuTool, added,  "I know I speak for all of us at NuTool in saying how excited we are about the combined potential of ASMI and NuTool, and what the combined companies can offer our industry and its investors.  We believe that NuTool has a fundamentally different technology than that which is currently available in the market. We received confirmation of our technology from the marketplace with the acceptance this year of our first 300mm Lumina Copper ECMDTM platform by a key customer in Europe. As part of ASMI, we now have the critical mass that we believe will allow us to significantly increase customer penetration and to accelerate the development of our products."
 
About NuTool and ASM
 
With headquarters in Milpitas, California, NuTool, Inc. designs, manufactures, and markets innovative copper damascene process technologies and equipment to the semiconductor industry. With nearly 120 patents issued and pending, NuTool is driving technology innovations for copper plating, planarization, and removal on a single platform that eases constraints on traditional design rules and reduces the cost of ownership of copper damascene processing. Additional information about NuTool is available at www.nutool.com.
 
ASM International N.V., headquartered in Bilthoven, the Netherlands, is a global company servicing one of the most important and demanding industries in the world.  The company and its subsidiaries design and manufacture equipment and materials used to produce semiconductor devices, including production solutions for wafer processing (Front-end segment) and assembly and packaging (Back-end segment).  The company possesses a strong technology base, state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities in the United States, Europe, Japan and Asia, a competent and qualified workforce and a highly trained, strategically distributed support network. ASM International's common stock trades on NASDAQ (symbol ASMI) and the Euronext Amsterdam Stock Exchange (symbol ASM). For more information, visit the ASM International website at www.asm.com.
 
 
Safe Harbor Statement under the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: All matters discussed in this statement, except for any historical data, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. These include, but are not limited to, economic conditions and trends in the semiconductor industry, currency fluctuations, the timing of significant orders, market acceptance of new products, competitive factors, litigation involving intellectual property, shareholder and other issues, commercial and economic disruption due to terrorist activity, armed conflict or political instability and other risks indicated in the Company's filings from time to time with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Authorities.
 
ASM is a registered trademark of ASM International N.V.

Contact:

ASM International N.V.
Robert de Bakker
+31 30 229 8540

Mary Jo Dieckhaus
+1 212 986 2900


NuTool
Homayoun Talieh
+1 408.586.9502

040603 NuTool Acquisition