Press Releases

NOVELLUS ANNOUNCES NEW BOARD MEMBER SAN JOSE, Calif., June 3, 2002--Novellus Systems Inc. (Nasdaq:NVLS), the productivity and innovation leader in advanced deposition and surface preparation processes for the global semiconductor industry, today announced the election of Dr. Yoshio Nishi, 62, to its board of directors. The former senior vice president and director of research and development for Texas Instruments (TI), Nishi will replace Tom Long of Planar Advance, Inc., who is retiring from the Novellus board.

Commenting on the change in board composition, Novellus' chairman and chief executive officer, Richard S. Hill, stated, "Novellus is very pleased to have an industry leader of Dr. Nishi's caliber on our board of directors. He enjoys an international reputation in the development and advancement of silicon technology and brings a wealth of business experience, as well. With his depth of knowledge in semiconductor manufacturing technology, Dr. Nishi will be a valuable addition to the board."

Dr. Nishi has nearly 40 years' experience in the semiconductor industry. Prior to joining TI in 1995 as vice president and director of research and development, Dr. Nishi led silicon technology research and development at Hewlett-Packard, where he established that company's ULSI Research Laboratory. Dr. Nishi spent his early career at Toshiba Corporation in Japan, where he held a number of increasingly responsible management positions in the development of MOS LSI technology, including the world's first 1Mbit CMOS DRAM. He also served for 17 years as a consulting professor for the Department of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. Dr. Nishi was recently named director of Stanford's Nanofabrication Facility and currently serves as a full-time professor.

Dr. Nishi holds a bachelor's degree in metallurgy from Tokyo's Waseda University, and a Ph.D. degree in electronic engineering from the University of Tokyo. He has been awarded more than 50 patents in the United States and Japan, and has co-authored nine books and 75 technical articles. Nishi was also the 2002 recipient of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Robert N. Noyce Medal, awarded annually for exceptional contributions to the microelectronics industry, which is the IEEE's top honor for semiconductor research and development.

About Novellus Systems:

Novellus Systems, Inc., an S&P 500 company, manufactures, markets and services advanced deposition and surface preparation equipment for today's advanced integrated circuits. The company's products are designed for high-volume production of advanced, leading-edge semiconductor devices at the lowest possible cost. Headquartered in San Jose, Calif., with subsidiaries throughout the United States as well as in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Ireland, Israel, Italy, India, China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan, Novellus is a publicly traded company on the Nasdaq stock exchange (Nasdaq: NVLS) and a component of the Nasdaq-100 Index(r). Additional information about the company is available on Novellus' home page at www.novellus.com