Dedicated and Long-Term AFM Business

The origins of Park can be found at Stanford University, the birthplace of Atomic Force Microscope (AFM). Dr. Sang-il Park, Chairman and CEO of Park Systems, was a graduate student of Applied Physics at the university, working in the very group that invented the AFM. Later, he became the original founder of Park Scientific Instruments and developed the world's first commercial AFM in 1989.

Sang-il Park took his visionary AFM leadership to Korea with PSIA, his spin-off company, which was renamed Park Systems in 2007. After 25 years of continuous growth and product innovation, Park has the longest history of AFM business in the industry. The company has developed a global sales network of over 30 countries and has more than 1000 AFMs in use around the world.

Longest History of AFM Business

  1988 - Park Scientific Instruments (PSI) founded in Palo Alto, CA, USA.

  1989 - Universal, the world's first commercial AFM, introduced.

  1992 - Introduction of Closed-Loop Scanner

  1993 - CP, the best selling commercial AFM, introduced.

  1997 - PSI acquired by Thermo Spectra.
             PSIA founded in strategic alliance with Thermo Spectra to develop next generation AFM.

  1998 - Veeco acquisition of Digital Instruments.

  1999 - Thermo Spectra acquisition of TopoMetrix and merger with PSI into Thermo Microscopes.

  2001 - Veeco acquisition of Thermo Microscopes.

  2002 - Alliance between PSIA and Thermo Microscopes terminated.
             Introduction of Crosstalk Eliminated (XE) AFM for flat and linear XY scan with decoupled XY and Z scanners
             XE-100, PSIA's flagship next generation AFM, introduced

  2003 - XE-150, XE-AFM with full 150mm traveling stage, introduced.

  2004 - Introduction of True Non-Contact Mode for non-destructive sample scan

  2006 - XE-PTR, automated industrial AFM for metrology of read/write heads, introduced.

  2007 - PSIA renamed Park Systems.

  2008 - XE-3DM, new 3D AFM for high resolution 3D metrology, introduced

  2009 - XE-Bio, new bio AFM for live cell imaging with Ion Conductance Microscopy (ICM), introduced
             XE-HDM, automatic defect review AFM for hard disk media and substrates, introduced

  2011 - NX10, the flagship AFM of a new product line with True Sample Topography^TM, introduced

Evolution of Commercial AFM Technology Driven by Park