Tokyo--Advantest Corporation, Toshiba Corporation and Asia Electronics Inc., a Toshiba group company, today announced an agreement, under which Asia Electronics will transfer certain assets and human resources of its semiconductor testing equipment division to Advantest in April 2000.

Tokyo-based Asia Electronics is an equally owned joint venture between Toshiba and Nippi Group, in which Toshiba has the management initiative. In the semiconductor testing equipment market, advances in semiconductor integration and process technologies are pushing demand for timely introduction of high performance, price-competitive systems, while shortening equipment life cycles and increasing development costs. Toshiba and Asia Electronics decided that, in these circumstances, the best future for Asia Electronics testing equipment division lay in transferring certain assets and human resources to major semiconductor testing equipment company.

Advantest is the manufacturer specializing in measuring equipment and semiconductor testing equipment. It has been investing significantly in development of advanced semiconductor testing equipment and facilities, in order to keep pace in the shift to highly integrated systems-on-silicon. Even with this high rate of investment, Advantest has been unable to cover a wide range of the products. Integrating assets and human resources of Asia Electronics to be transferred upon the completion of this transaction with its own will reinforce its development and manufacture of new semiconductor testing equipment and allow it to offer a wider range of competitive products supporting continued progress in the semiconductor industry.

In implementing this reorganization, Toshiba will assume a 100 percent stake in Asia Electronics, making it a wholly owned Toshiba's subsidiary by the end of March 2000. Following this, certain assets of the semiconductor testing equipment division will be transferred to a subsidiary of Advantest.

The transfer will cover certain assets belonging to the semiconductor testing equipment division of Asia Electronics, including equipment, patents, other intellectual property, human resources, and the entire outstanding stock of Asia Electronics' own subsidiary, Kyushu Asia Electronics. The Advantest subsidiary will accept 225 employees from Asia Electronics.

Profile of Asia Electronics Inc.

* Kyushu Asia Electronics Inc.