FEI Company (Field Electron and Ion Company) was an American company that designed, manufactured, and supported microscope technology. Headquartered in

Hillsboro, Oregon Hillsboro ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Oregon and is the county seat of Washington County, Oregon, Washington County. Situated in the Tualatin Valley on the west side of the Portland metropolitan area, the city hosts many High tech, high-te ...

, FEI had over 2,800 employees and sales and service operations in more than 50 countries around the world. Formerly listed on the NASDAQ, it is now a subsidiary of

Thermo Fisher Scientific Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. is an American life science and clinical research company. It is a global supplier of analytical instruments, clinical development solutions, specialty diagnostics, laboratory, pharmaceutical and biotechnology s ...

History

The FEI company was founded in 1971 as Field Electron and Ion Company by Dr. Lynwood W. Swanson, Mr. Noel A. Martin and Mr. Lloyd Swenson, as a supplier of electron and ion beam sources for field emission research and electron microscopy. The name was shortened to FEI Company in 1973. In 1978, Dr. J.H. Orloff, a research specialist in electrostatic optics for field emission ion and electron sources, joined the company as its fourth partner. Swanson was a professor of applied physics at the

Oregon Graduate Center The Oregon Graduate Center was a unique, private, postgraduate-only research university in Washington County, Oregon, on the west side of Portland, from 1963 to 2001. The center was renamed the Oregon Graduate Institute in 1989. The Institute ...

, and Orloff's doctoral adviser. FEI's introduction of the liquid metal ion source in 1981 led to its application in the semiconductor industry for mask repair and defect analysis. The current company was formed by the 1997 merger between FEI and

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), simply branded Philips, is a Dutch multinational health technology company that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, its world headquarters have been situated in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarter ...

Electron Optics, and the 1999 acquisition of ion beam company Micrion. As such, the company can trace its roots in

electron microscopy An electron microscope is a microscope that uses a beam of electrons as a source of illumination. It uses electron optics that are analogous to the glass lenses of an optical light microscope to control the electron beam, for instance focusing i ...

to the early commercial instruments produced by Philips Electron Optics in the 1940s. On December 20, 2006, Philips Business Electronics International B.V. sold its shares of common stock in FEI Company reducing its shareholding in FEI to zero. In May 2011, the company announced a second straight quarter of record revenue and profits, with the company totaling nearly $200 million in revenue for their second quarter. The company attributed the growth to a diversification of its clientele. On May 27, 2016,

Inc. announced its acquisition of FEI Company for US$4.2 billion, which commenced in early 2017. At the time of the transaction, FEI had more than 2700 employees in over 20 countries. The FEI trademark was phased out in favor of the ''Materials & Structural Analysis'' division of Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Operations

The products manufactured by the division include

focused ion beam Focused ion beam, also known as FIB, is a technique used particularly in the semiconductor industry, materials science and increasingly in the biological field for site-specific analysis, deposition, and ablation of materials. A FIB setup is a sc ...

workstations,

scanning electron microscope A scanning electron microscope (SEM) is a type of electron microscope that produces images of a sample by scanning the surface with a focused beam of electrons. The electrons interact with atoms in the sample, producing various signals that ...

transmission electron microscope Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is a microscopy technique in which a beam of electrons is transmitted through a specimen to form an image. The specimen is most often an ultrathin section less than 100 nm thick or a suspension on a gr ...

s, and focusing columns, as well as computer software used in image acquisition, reconstruction, and analysis. The division has research and development centers in Hillsboro,

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

;

Eindhoven Eindhoven ( ; ) is a city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, located in the southern Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Brabant, of which it is the largest municipality, and is also locat ...

The Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

;

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

, Germany;

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

, China PRC;

Tokyo, Japan Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

;

Brno Brno ( , ; ) is a Statutory city (Czech Republic), city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava (river), Svitava and Svratka (river), Svratka rivers, Brno has about 403,000 inhabitants, making ...

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

;

Canberra Canberra ( ; ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the Federation of Australia, federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's list of cities in Australia, largest in ...

, Australia;

Trondheim Trondheim ( , , ; ), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros, and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2022, it had a population of 212,660. Trondheim is the third most populous municipality in Norway, and is ...

, Norway; and

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( ; ; Gascon language, Gascon ; ) is a city on the river Garonne in the Gironde Departments of France, department, southwestern France. A port city, it is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the Prefectures in F ...

, France. It has sales and service operations in more than 50 countries.

Subsidiaries

* FEI Technologies Inc. (Oregon, United States) * ASPEX Corporation (dba FEI Delmont) (Pennsylvania, United States) * Visualization Sciences Group Inc. (dba FEI Houston) (United States) * FEI Electron Optics International B.V. (Netherlands) * FEI Electron Optics B.V. (Netherlands) * FEI Europe B.V. (Netherlands) * FEI CPD B.V. (Netherlands) * FEI Global Holdings C.V. (Netherlands) * FEI Czech Republic s.r.o. (Czech Republic) * FEI Munich GmbH (fka TILL Photonics GmbH) (Germany) * FEI Deutschland GmbH (Germany) * FEI France SAS (France) * FEI SAS (fka Visualization Sciences Group SAS) (France) * FEI UK Limited (United Kingdom) * FEI Italia S.r.l. (Italy) * FEI Norway Holding AS (fka Lithicon AS) (Norway) * FEI Trondheim AS (fka Lithicon Norway AS) (Norway) * FEI Servicos de Nanotechnologia Ltda (Brazil) * FEI Technology de Mexico S.A. de C.V. (Mexico) * FEI Company Japan Ltd. (Japan) * FEI Trading (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (China) * FEI APR Co., Ltd. (China) * FEI Hong Kong Company Limited (Hong Kong) * FEI Korea Ltd. (South Korea) * FEI Company of USA (S.E.A.) Pte Ltd (Singapore) * FEI Melbourne Pty Ltd. (Australia) * FEI Canberra Pty Ltd. (fka Lithicon Australia Pty Ltd.) (Australia) * FEI Microscopy Solutions Ltd. (Israel)

References

External links

FEI Website
- Official FEI website {{Electron microscopy Thermo Fisher Scientific Manufacturing companies established in 1971 Companies based in Hillsboro, Oregon Multinational companies Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq 1971 establishments in Oregon American companies established in 1971 2017 mergers and acquisitions

History

Operations

Subsidiaries

See also

References

External links