Veeco Instruments Inc. and FEI Co. have signed a merger agreement under which FEI will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Veeco. The expanded company, which will be renamed Veeco FEI Inc., will exchange an estimated $1 billion in shares for outstanding FEI stocks. The merger will unite Veeco's expertise in process equipment and metrology tools with FEI's strength in structural analysis systems for three-dimensional metrology. The company will be headquartered in Woodbury, N.Y., and FEI's headquarters in Hillsboro, Ore., will be used for research and development and for manufacturing.