PLAINVIEW, N.Y., July 13 -- Veeco Instruments Inc. has reported more than $10 million in orders for its automated atomic force microscope and profiler semiconductor metrology tools in this year's second quarter. During the second quarter of 2000, Veeco's total metrology orders were approximately $45 million, an approximately 80 percent increase over the second quarter of last year, said Edward H. Braun, Veeco's chairman and CEO. This strength was primarily driven by orders for our family of automated semiconductor tools. Semiconductor manufacturers are rapidly adopting the Vx Atomic Force Profiler and the Dimension 9000 as their tools of choice for 0.13 micron feature sizes and control of demanding Chemical Mechanical Polishing processes. Both metrology tools are 300 mm capable. The systems will go out to semiconductor customers in the US, Taiwan, Europe and Japan by next year's first quarter the company said.