November 8, 2007 - MKS Instruments says it has acquired privately held Yield Dynamics for an undisclosed amount, though it says the deal will be "slightly accretive" and will not materially affect its near-term financial results.

The combination of MKS' monitoring/control technologies with Yield Dynamics' yield management technology creates "a total solution for managing and correlating process data to improve process yield," said Leo Berlinghieri, MKS president/CEO, in a statement. "We believe we can help fabs identify additional information from our sensors that, when integrated with fault detection and classification and yield management software, could allow fabs to take a step closer to predicting process excursions before they happen and improve yield while reducing cost."

Berlinghieri also indicated the deal opens up long-term opportunities in related markets such as flat-panel display, solar cells, and other markets that use thin-film manufacturing processes.