PLAINVIEW, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 10, 2000--In conjunction with the SemiCon West Show in San Francisco, Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:VECO) announced today that its orders for the second quarter ended June 30, 2000 were over $125 million, a record for the Company, and an increase of approximately 55% from the prior year period.

Veeco's second quarter revenues were in line with Company expectations of approximately $90 million. The Company's book-to-bill ratio was approximately 1.4 to 1. Veeco is scheduled to release complete second quarter results on July 27, 2000.

Veeco also announced that its Ion Tech subsidiary booked over $35 million in second quarter orders for its SPECTOR(TM) optical coating ion beam deposition systems used by manufacturers of Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) filters. Veeco's other subsidiaries also received orders from optical telecommunications customers for process and metrology equipment, bringing Veeco's total second quarter orders from this market to over $40 million.

Edward H. Braun, Veeco's Chairman and CEO commented, "Veeco's record of over $125 million in orders reflects the strength of our optical telecommunication deposition equipment, semiconductor metrology products and new data storage products. Orders from the optical telecommunications market increased to over $40 million, representing over 30% of Veeco's second quarter orders. Ion Tech's record orders, which increased approximately 225% from the second quarter of 1999 and approximately 100% sequentially from the first quarter of 2000, are indicative of the strong demand for our ion beam deposition systems from thin film filter manufacturers."

Ion Tech's ion beam deposition systems are used to manufacture precise, multi-layer, thin film optical filters critical to extending the bandwidth of fiber optic telecommunications networks.

Mr. Braun added, "Our metrology orders for the second quarter were approximately $45 million, up approximately 80% over last year's second quarter, driven by our automated semiconductor atomic force metrology tools."

Veeco Instruments Inc., headquartered in Plainview, New York, is a worldwide leader in metrology tools for the data storage, semiconductor and research markets, and process equipment etch and deposition tools for the data storage and optical telecommunications industry. Manufacturing and engineering facilities are located in New York, California, Colorado, Arizona and Minnesota. Global sales and service offices are located throughout the United States, Europe, Japan and Asia Pacific. Additional information on Veeco can be found at http://www.veeco.com.

To the extent that this news release discusses expectations about market conditions or about market acceptance and future sales of Veeco's products, or otherwise makes statements about the future, such statements are forward-looking and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made. These factors include the cyclical nature of the data storage, optical telecommunications and semiconductor industries, risks associated with the acceptance of new products by individual customers and by the marketplace, and other factors discussed in the Business Description and Management's Discussion and Analysis sections of Veeco's Report on Form 10-K and Annual Report to Shareholders.

CONTACT: Veeco Instruments Inc., Plainview

             Financial Contact:
             Debra Wasser, VP of Investor Relations
             516/349-8300, ext. 1472
             Trade Contact:
             Fran Brennen, Director of Marketing Communications
             516/349-8300 ext. 1472