Veeco China Training Center Reaches 500th Trainee Milestone

PLAINVIEW, N.Y. --(Business Wire)--

Veeco Instruments (News - Alert) Inc. (Nasdaq: VECO) announced today that it has trained its 500^th customer engineer at its state-of-the-art China Training Center (CTC), located in Shanghai. The CTC opened in mid-2011 to help key LED manufacturers, including its two largest customers, Sanan Optoelectronics and Elec-Tech International, scale-up production, optimize their use of metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) systems, and support the industry's rapid growth.

Veeco's China Training Center is located in Veeco China's headquarters building in Shanghai. It includes Veeco's market-leading TurboDisc(R) K465i(TM) MOCVD System for hands-on training. (Photo: Business Wire)

Lin Zhiqiang, Chief Executive Officer of Sanan Optoelectronics, commented, "We congratulate Veeco on achieving this impressive milestone. By having a strong presence in China and establishing this state-of-the-art center, Veeco has demonstrated industry leadership not just in MOCVD technology, but in customer support as well. Sanan recently achieved record revenues in 2011 as an industry leader of high quality LEDs for applications such as general illumination, TV backlighting and outdoor displays. Veeco is helping Sanan to maximize the future LED growth opportunity by supporting our training needs and capacity ramp. We look forward to continuing our prosperous relationship with Veeco."

Greg Crea, CEO of Elec-Tech International's LED Business, added, "Veeco was first to recognize the importance of customer training as critical in the recipe for success in China. Their strong support, particularly in helping to train our engineers at the CTC, has enabled us to make significant progress scaling LED manufacturing capacity at our two sites in Wuhu and Yangzhou. Our goal is to become a top-three LED company by output and sales revenue in China within two years, focusing on the general lighting and BLU market, as well as other applications."

John Peeler, Veeco's Chief Executive Officer, commented, "In 2010 and 2011 China made an enormous investment to expand LED manufacturing capabilities to respond to its energy challenges and capitalize on the global opportunity as LED lighting hits an inflection point. During this timeframe, Veeco shipped over 400 MOCVD systems to Chinese customers, including the established LED manufacturers, joint venture entities, and start-ups. Every one of these customers is unique, and we are focused on delivering the best-in-class support and systems they will need for future growth and success."

Veeco's CTC is located in Veeco China's headquarters building and fully staffed by local, highly trained Veeco instructors. Approximately 1,700 square meters in size, it features three fully equipped classrooms as well as Veeco's market leading TurboDisc® K465i™ MOCVD System for hands-on training. The CTC has a comprehensive schedule of classes including basic MOCVD system training, epitaxial layer optimization introductions and advanced hands-on classes in hardware maintenance and trouble-shooting.

About Veeco

Veeco makes equipment to develop and manufacture LEDs, solar cells, hard disk drives and other devices. We support our customers through product development, manufacturing, sales and service sites in the U.S., Korea, Taiwan, China, Singapore, Japan, Europe and other locations. Please visit us at www.veeco.com.

To the extent that this news release discusses expectations or otherwise makes statements about the future, such statements are forward-looking and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made. These factors include the risks discussed in the Business Description and Management's Discussion and Analysis sections of Veeco's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2011 and in our subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and press releases .Veeco does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances after the date of such statements.

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