San Jose, CA - January 11, 2002 -- Olympus Integrated Technologies America, Inc. (Olympus-ITA) of San Jose, a subsidiary of Olympus Corporation, Japan has named Greg Baker to the position of Vice President of Technology. With over 20 years of design, engineering and management experience in semiconductor software and process equipment, Greg joins the highly qualified staff at Olympus Integrated Technologies America.

Mr. Baker most recently held the position of Partner and Vice President of Engineering at Kinetek Corporation, a manufacturer of semiconductor processing and analysis equipment. For over 11 years, Greg directed development and marketing of the company's major product lines that included wafer inspection and defect review stations, and software products. During his tenure at Kinetek he also established critical alliances with customers and suppliers to define, develop and improve products in production environments.

Prior to Kinetek, Greg was involved in the design and development of processing equipment for SMIF wafer fabrication facilities. He is credited with the development of the first SMIF wafer inspection station for semiconductor fabrication and has received patents for non-contact pre-alignment systems and a cassette wafer mapping system.

Greg's primary responsibilities will include the technical application and marketing support for Olympus Integrated Technologies America wafer inspection and defect review systems. Installation of several of these systems are scheduled at U.S. based device manufacturers in the first and second quarters of this year. During an interview at the Olympus-ITA headquarters in San Jose, Greg explained, " I am excited about joining and contributing to the Olympus-ITA organization. The group here is very experienced and talented and I believe this, in combination with the backing of Olympus Japan will result in a successful world class organization. I will focus on working with both the Olympus team and customers to provide a clear understanding within our organization of the continuously changing customer and industry requirements. In this way we can provide the customer with quality systems that will continue to meet and exceed their requirements and expectations."

Greg reports directly to Mr. Rick LaFrance, President of Olympus-ITA. Rick commented during the interview, "Greg brings many years of experience with Olympus products and the inspection market into our company. He will play an integral role in the successful installation of our systems while capturing information and data for use in future product development efforts."

About Olympus-Integrated Technologies America
Olympus Integrated Technologies America, Inc. of San Jose provides technical and product development support for Olympus optical inspection and defect review products and OEM Optics in the U.S. market. Olympus-ITA is an emerging semiconductor equipment supplier with the backing of Olympus Corporation, Japan, an eighty- year old, $4 billion dollar organization.