Adam Norton founded NEO in July, 2004 to offer his design and engineering services to industry. For over 27 years, as an optical designer, systems engineer, and algorithm developer, he has helped design, build and test some of the most precise and complicated equipment used in the semiconductor industry. He has helped develop microlithography equipment at Perkin-Elmer and semiconductor metrology equipment for thin film and line profile measurement at Prometrix, Tencor, KLA-Tencor, Sensys Instruments and Thermawave. These are some of the most sophisticated systems used in the semiconductor manufacturing process employing numerous subsystems and technologies, requiring a broad, multidisciplinary skill-set to engineer.

Among other accomplishments, he was the optical designer and systems engineer for the Prometrix UV-1050 automated film-thickness measurement system. This product dominated its market, and its design remains the basis for a series of product generations that continue to set the standards for the industry. He has also designed the Sensys CCD-i integrated critical dimension metrology module. This was selected by Tokyo Electron, the largest maker of semiconductor wafer tracks, to be included as an option in all of their wafer tracks. Some of the other successful products he has made major contribution too are: Perkin-Elmer Micrastep series of wafer steppers. Prometrix SM-300, Prometrix FT-xxx series, Prometrix UV-xxxx series, KLA-Tencor ASET-F5, Thermawave 7341XP, Bodkin Design and Engineering Miniature Hyperspectral Imager, and others under development.

Mr. Norton holds 29 US patents, at least 2 pending US patent applications, and has co-authored three published technical papers.