Fremont, CA, February 2, 2000 - Asyst Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq NM: ASYT), today announced the appointment of Mark Danna to the newly created position of vice president of engineering. Reporting to Anthony C. Bonora, Asyst's senior vice president and chief technology officer, Danna will lead engineering activities across the company's expanding global operations.

"Our recent acquisitions of Hine Design, Progressive System Technologies, Inc. and Palo Alto Technologies, Inc. and our alliance with MECS in Japan, have created global challenges that require increased coordination of all of the disciplines involved in product development, release and support," stated Bonora. "Mark brings a great deal of experience and expertise to our worldwide engineering efforts."

Danna's responsibilities will include achieving alignment of processes for project management, CAD utilization, new product releases, intellectual property, compliance certification and reliability. He also will work closely with Bonora to define leadership roles in guiding product development for Asyst's various operations.

Prior to joining Asyst, Danna spent 12 years with Watkins-Johnson in Scotts Valley, CA, where he most recently served as vice president of engineering. He earned bachelor's degrees in mechanical engineering from Santa Clara University and in marketing from the University of Utah.

Except for statements of historical fact, the statements in this press release are forward-looking. Such statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made. These factors include, but are not limited to, general economic conditions, semiconductor industry cycles, risks associated with the acceptance of new products and product capabilities and other factors more fully detailed in the Company's most recent Forms 10-K and 10-Q and annual report to shareholders.

About Asyst
Asyst Technologies, Inc. is the leading provider of Standard Mechanical Interface-based minienvironment and manufacturing automation systems that enable semiconductor manufacturers to protect customers' valued assets throughout the manufacturing process while increasing manufacturing productivity. Asyst offers a broad range of 200 mm and 300 mm products that enable the Company to provide semiconductor manufacturers and Original Equipment Manufacturers automated manufacturing solutions for the transfer of wafers and information between the process equipment and the fab line.

SMIF-LPT, SMIF-Indexer, SMIF-Enclosure and SMART-Tag are trademarks of Asyst Technologies.