Leica Opens New Clean Room

Replacing the previous clean room in Wetzlar, the new facility will also bring together the assembly lines previously maintained at two locations. Built by M+W Zander, the new 594 m² clean room will be used for system assembly and integration, and for customer acceptance tests. The sensitive entrance, packaging and system integration areas correspond to clean room class 10,000; and the 328m² assembly clean room is class 100,000. Completed in only three months by May 2005 at a cost of approximately ? 450,000, the new clean room provides 50 % more capacity for the assembly of the LMS IPRO3. This system is designed to support the mask metrology requirements of the 65 nm node and also delivers a substantially improved measurement performance with short-term repeatability better than 1.5 nm. US-based Danaher Corporation purchased Leica Microsystems AG from LM Investments S.à r.l earlier this summer. The purchase price amounts to an enterprise value of approximately ?450 million, including assumed debt, pension liabilities, transaction costs and net of cash acquired.