[2] In 1970, ESI began developing laser trimming systems for resistor circuits,[2] and soon became a leader in this field.

[17] The company moved its headquarters to the Sunset Science Park location in 1963, and the manufacturing facilities followed in 1966, vacating the Macadam Avenue site.

[32] In 2005, ESI joined Columbia Sportswear, Tektronix and other Washington County companies in an effort led by Nike to convince the state legislature to prohibit the practice of forcible annexation of "islands" of unincorporated land that have become surrounded by a city.

[33] The Nike effort stemmed from an aggressive annexation policy being practiced by the city of Beaverton in 2004, under which the city had added more than 500 acres (2.0 km2) of unincorporated land, including the headquarters of Leupold & Stevens[34] (located almost adjacent to ESI, but on the opposite side of the Sunset Highway freeway).

Although the then-headquarters sites of ESI and Columbia are not on "islands" surrounded by Beaverton, both directly abut the city boundary, and company officials were concerned about the likely eventual effect of the city's annexation practices should future annexations cause their properties to become part of such an island.

[35][36] In October 2018, it was announced that a deal had been reached to sell the company to MKS Instruments, Inc., based in Andover, Massachusetts,[37] for a price of approximately $1 billion in cash.

[8][38] On January 1, 2019, ESI stockholders approved the deal, also referred to as a merger, and the company announced that its stock would cease trading upon the closing of the transaction,[39] which was achieved on February 1, 2019.

ESI’s manufacturing facilities are distributed across the US and Asia, from the headquarters campus in Portland, to Klamath Falls, Oregon, Fremont, California, Bozeman, Montana and Singapore.

[43] ESI’s interconnect and micro-fabrication products are used to create nano-scale features on a variety of materials and substrates in high-volume manufacturing.

The company’s semiconductor products include automated ultra-thin wafer dicing and high-throughput, high-accuracy grooving systems.