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James Moniz (pictured), who previously served as chief financial officer at Nextest Systems until it was acquired in February 2008 and then became CFO at Photon Dynamics for six months until it was acquired in October, is now fulfilling that role at Nanometrics. The Milpitas company, which used to bill itself as a maker of process control equipment used by the semiconductor industry, has greened up its description to include customers in the solar energy and light-emitting diode industries as well. No wonder, since the chip industry and the makers of equipment for them are mired in the industy’s Read the rest of this entry »

Checking the wires late Wednesday afternoon, we ran across a press release from Nanometrics, the Milpitas maker of chip-making equipment. It plans on “reducing its global workforce by approximately seven percent.” The move “affects employees in each of the company’s locations worldwide.”

The company said it would record about $600,000 in restructuring charges. Based on an employee workforce numbering 522 employees at the end of 2006, that works out to about an average of $17,000 per each layed-off worker.

Compare that to what the company’s former chief executive John Heaton got when his employment with the company “ended” in March 2007. $404,250 in annual salary paid in monthly installments for one year, along with 12 months worth of vesting of his options.