Kulicke & Soffa Announces the Grand Opening of a New Wafer Test Manufacturing Facility in Hsin Chu, Taiwan

Kulicke & Soffa Industries, Inc. will hold a grand opening event on October 15, 2004 at its new state-of-the-art probe card manufacturing facility located in Hsin Chu, Taiwan.

With a floor size of over 2,400 square meters, this new facility has full manufacturing capability for all types of enhanced cantilever probe cards. The facility can produce optimized probe designs for each customer's application. Additionally, this new K&S plant can handle probe wire diameters from 75 to 250 microns, along with very fine pitch probing.

Oded Lendner, vice president, K&S worldwide operations, said, "Our objective for the plant is to provide advanced probe card manufacturing technology to meet the growing trends and expanding markets for IC testing in Taiwan. Additionally, this new factory will follow our copy exact manufacturing model to match the K&S test quality and performance that we have achieved in other expanding test markets around the globe."

Also, this new facility is strategically working with key Taiwan-based customers for cantilever probe cards, and the Company plans to increase its presence in the vertical probe card market. The Hsin Chu facility also has a full repair center for vertical, cobra technology probe cards and has announced plans for vertical, cobra technology probe card assembly-repair capabilities by mid-2005.

Jack Belani, K&S vice president of marketing and business units, commented, "Our fast design capability, combined with our superior application support and manufacturing, will allow us to better serve our growing customer base in Taiwan." He continued, "We are in the final stages of building our Hsin Chu after-sales support center to provide enhanced repair and rebuild services."

The Company has invited leading Taiwanese semiconductor company management, key government officials and many of the leading semiconductor research groups within Taiwan to the grand opening event.

For more information on the new K&S wafer test facility, please visit the K&S web site at www.kns.com.

About K&S

Kulicke & Soffa is the world's leading supplier of semiconductor wire bonding assembly equipment. K&S is the only major supplier to the semiconductor assembly industry that provides customers with semiconductor wire bonding equipment along with the complementing packaging materials and test interconnect products that actually contact the surface of the customer's semiconductor devices. The ability to control all of these assembly-related products is unique to Kulicke & Soffa, and allows us to develop system solutions to the new technology challenges inherent in assembling and packaging next-generation semiconductor devices. Test interconnect products include a variety of wafer probe cards, ATE interface assemblies, and ATE boards for wafer testing, as well as test sockets for all types of packaged semiconductor devices. Kulicke & Soffa's web site address is http://www.kns.com.

Caution Concerning Forward-Looking Statements

In addition to historical statements, this press release contains statements relating to future events and our future results. These statements are "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and include, but are not limited to, statements that relate to our future revenue, operating expenses, profitability, cash flows, and projected continued demand for our products. While these forward-looking statements represent our judgments and future expectations concerning our business, a number of risks, uncertainties and other important factors could cause actual developments and results to differ materially from our expectations. These factors include, but are not limited to, those listed or discussed in Kulicke & Soffa Industries' 2003 Annual Report on Form 10-K and our other filings with the SEC, and the risk of failure to successfully manage our operations; the risk that anticipated orders may not materialize or that orders received may be postponed or canceled, generally without charges; the risk that anticipated cost savings will not be achieved; the volatility in the demand for semiconductors and our products and services; acts of terrorism and violence; overall global economic conditions; risks, such as changes in trade regulations, currency fluctuations, political instability and war, associated with a substantial foreign customer and supplier base and substantial foreign manufacturing operations; potential instability in foreign capital markets; and other key factors that could adversely affect our businesses and financial performance contained in past and future filings and reports, including those with the SEC. Kulicke & Soffa Industries is under no obligation to (and expressly disclaims any obligation to) update or alter its forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

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