Implant Sciences sells Accruel to Evans Analytical

Published 4 May 2007

An ion beam technology specialist and devloper of portable trace explosive detection systems sells division to materials characterization services company to concentrate on security business

Wakefield, Massachusetts-based Implant Sciences Corporation (AMEX: IMX) is selling Sunnyvale, California-based Accurel Systems International (“Accurel”), a division of ISC’s semiconductor business unit, to Evans Analytical Group. Evans paid ISC approximately $12,705,000 in cash and will also assume estimated liabilities of approximately $3,017,000, including equipment related debt. There are about $929,000 in transaction costs. ISC will also issue a warrant to purchase 350,000 shares of ISC common stock to New York-based Legend Merchant Group, the company’s investment banker. The warrant may be exercised at a price equal to the closing price of ISC’s common stock on 1 May 2007.

ISC also repaid a $1,500,000 secured term note, and accrued interest, issued to New York-based Laurus Master Fund on 29 December 2006.

Dr. Anthony Armini, chairman and CEO of Implant Sciences, explained that the sale was part of a commitment “to continuing the streamlining of [ISC]’s operations and enhancing our focus on opportunities in our security business. The sale of Accurel provides us with the opportunity to concentrate our management, manpower and working capital on the goal of expanding our security sales and marketing reach and increasing our efforts to expand our security product line.”

ISC will host a conference call on Monday, 7 May 2007 at 11:00 AM EST to review the Accurel transaction and ISC’s strategic plan. See details on how to access the call in this news release.

Accurel is a leading provider of advanced failure analysis (FA), microscopy, and focused ion beam (FIB) circuit edit services. Evans, describing itself as “the only true global and independent alternative” for high-technology materials characterization services, offers customers a suite of more than thirty analytical techniques and services through fifteen labs located in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Accurel’s failure analysis, electron microscopy, and circuit edit services will nicely complement Evans’s current offerings.

The Focused Ion Beam (FIB) system uses a Gallium (Ga +) ion beam to raster

over the surface of a sample. This is similar to electron beam in a scanning

electron microscope (but with important differences, as noted below). The

generated secondary electrons (or ions) are collected to form an image of

the surface of the sample. The ion beam allows the milling of small holes in

the sample at well localized sites, so that cross-sectional images of the

structure can be obtained or that modifications in the structures can be

made. The applications of FIB include cross-sectional imaging through

semiconductor devices (or any layered structure), modification of the

electrical routing on semiconductor devices, failure analysis, preparation

for physico-chemical analysis, preparation of specimens for transmission

electron microscopy (TEM), micro-machining, mask repair, and

non-semiconductor applications.

The main difference between scanning with an electronic microscope and FIB

is that the former uses a focused beam of electrons to obtain an image the

sample in the chamber, a FIB uses a focused beam of gallium ions. In a

Gallium liquid metal ion source (LMIS), gallium metal is placed in contact

with a tungsten needle and heated: Gallium wets the tungsten, and an

electric field — greater than 108 volts per centimeter — causes ionization

and field emission of the gallium atoms. These ions are then accelerated to

an energy of 5-50 keV (kiloelectronvolts) and then focused onto the sample

by electrostatic lenses.

Which brings us to the main difference between FIB and electronic microscope

scanning: The FIB does damage to the specimen. As the gallium ions strike

the sample, they sputter atoms from the sample’s surface. What is more,

Gallium atoms are also implanted into the top few nanometers of the surface,

and the surface is made amorphous. This sputtering capability makes the FIB

useful in micro-machining for modifying materials at the micro- and

nanoscale.