Veeco Instruments of Woodbury, N.Y., CEA Leti of Grenoble, France, and Team Nanotec GmbH of Villingen-Schwenningen, Germany, have agreed to jointly develop next-generation probe tips, for use in Veeco's atomic force microscopes. The two-year program is intended to meet the semiconductor industry's needs as it evolves below 70 nm. Team Nanotec is a specialist in small, high-aspect-ratio tips, and CEA Leti, an applied research electronics laboratory, will provide the capacity to test the tips in real-world research and production environments.