OTHER NEWS - Nov. 23, 1991
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
Chip Equipment Firm to Buy Rival: Etec Systems, a Hayward-based vendor of chip-making gear, has agreed to buy rival Ateq Corp. of Beaverton, Ore., for an undisclosed sum. Both companies are leaders in the small but strategically important market for machines that use lasers or beams of electrons to produce computer chips. While the U.S. dominates this niche, government and industry officials worry that better-financed Japanese companies will take over the market, and Etec Chief Executive Chuck Minihan said Japanese firms were interested in buying financially strapped Ateq. Etec could afford to come to the rescue because it is the product of a collaboration of six major electronics companies, including IBM.
