Thermo Electron's Thermo VG Semicon Business Unit Receives Coveted Business Performance Award in the United Kingdom

Source: Thermo Electron Corporation

Recipient of the Queen s Award for Enterprise, Innovation Category

Waltham, MA. Thermo Electron Corporation (NYSE: TMO) announced that its U.K.-based Thermo VG Semicon business unit has received the Queen s Award for Enterprise in the Innovation category for its V100 production molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) system. The V100 is the most widely used MBE system worldwide for the mass production of advanced, gallium arsenide-based electronic devices, which are extensively employed as low-noise amplifiers and switches in the latest generation of mobile and cellular telephones.

"We are extremely proud of Thermo VG Semicon and delighted that the Queen s Awards Office recognized the significance of its innovation in production MBE," said Richard F. Syron, chairman and chief executive officer of Thermo Electron. "Until Thermo VG Semicon introduced the V100 in 1991, MBE was a research-oriented tool capable of manufacturing device wafers in relatively limited quantities. As a result of the V100, major suppliers in the wireless sector such as RF Micro Devices, TRW, Picogiga, and IQE are able to manufacture tens of thousands of device wafers per year, thus enabling the cellular telephone industry to meet the strong demand for its mobile handsets."

The Queen s Awards are announced on the birthday of Her Majesty the Queen, April 21. The U.K. s top awards for business performance, Queen s Awards are granted in three categories: international trade, innovation, and sustainable development. Thermo VG Semicon s award recognizes outstanding and continuous innovation resulting in substantial improvement in business performance and commercial success.

"The Queen s Award rightfully recognizes the involvement of everyone at Thermo VG Semicon in contributing to the success of the V100," said Dr. David Williams, managing director of Thermo VG Semicon. "The challenge of producing epitaxial wafers, in the volumes and with the reliability and reproducibility required by our customers, was met for the first time in our industry by Thermo VG Semicon s dedicated team of development scientists and engineers, with input from sales, marketing, and customer services departments."

Since launching the V100 ten years ago, Thermo VG Semicon has engaged a continuous improvement program that has led to such product enhancements as full automation, long-term stability for improved yield, and better ease of operation and ease of maintenance. Today, a V100 is typically run unsupervised in fully automatic batch mode, without operator intervention.

"A single V100 can produce many thousands of three- or four-inch device wafers per year, with each wafer yielding thousands of Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit (RFIC) chips for insertion into mobile telephone handsets," said Dr. Williams. "This remarkable capacity has been the driving force for our V100 business."

Thermo VG Semicon is currently expanding the market for its V100 equipment. MBE is now employed in the preparation of digital versatile disk (DVD) laser pick-ups, high power lasers, pump lasers, telecommunications lasers, and in Hall sensor elements used in the control of precision motors.

Thermo Electron Corporation is a global leader in providing technology- based instruments, components, and systems that offer total solutions for markets ranging from life sciences to telecommunications to food, drug, and beverage production. The company s powerful technologies help researchers sift through data to make discoveries that will fight disease or prolong life. They allow manufacturers to fabricate ever-smaller components required to increase the speed and quality of communications. And they automatically monitor and control online production to ensure that critical quality standards are met safely and efficiently. In 2000, Thermo Electron s instrument businesses, based in Waltham, Massachusetts, reported $2.3 billion in revenues and employed approximately 13,000 people worldwide. For more information on Thermo Electron, visit http://www.thermo.com.

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This press release contains forward- looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements are set forth under the heading "Risk Factors" in the company s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 30, 2000. These include risks and uncertainties relating to: integration of the company s instrument businesses, the ability to improve internal growth, liquidity and prospective performance of the subsidiaries to be spun off, the company s guarantee of obligations of the subsidiaries to be spun off, the effect of exchange rate fluctuations on international operations, potential impairment of goodwill, the need to develop new products and adapt to significant technological change, dependence on customers that operate in cyclical industries, the effect of changes in governmental regulations, and dependence on customers capital spending policies and government funding policies.

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