Accent Optical to offer 3.7 million shares in IPO

Bend, Oregon, May 17, 2004--Accent Optical Technologies will offer 3.7 million shares at $14-$16/share in an initial public offering, according to a U.S. regulatory filing. The company first proposed its IPO last March and plans to sell 2.5 million common shares. Stockholders are expected to sell another 1.2 million shares in the IPO.

Accent Optical is a supplier of process control tools for optoelectronic, wireless, and silicon semiconductor manufacturers worldwide. The company was formed with the purchase of Bio-Rad's semiconductor and optoelectronic metrology division in July 2000.

Accent's portfolio of products include critical dimension/scatterometry; defect detection; pulsed current analysis; electrochemical CV profiling; FT-IR; hall mobility system; PL mapping; X-ray diffraction; and contamination mapping.