Bend-based Accent Optical Technologies has agreed to be acquired by a Milpitas, Calif., competitor, the companies announced this week.

Nanometrics (Nasdaq: NANO) agreed to purchase the privately held Accent for a deal that includes stock and assume $10.6 million of Accent’s debt, according to a release posted on Accent’s Web site.

Both companies design and manufacture inspection systems and process-control devices used by the manufacturers of silicon wafers.

The two companies have strengths in different aspects of the business which, combined, should make both stronger, said Accent Chairman and CEO Bruce Rhine.

”Accent has always had great products, and now we will have the scale and strength to maximize their potential,” Rhine said.

About 25 of Accent Optical’s 220 employees are based in Bend, including the company’s top executives and a team of research scientists, said Marketing and Communications Director Elizabeth Justema. It maintains a research and development lab in south Bend, but its products are manufactured in the United Kingdom and it has sales and service people throughout the world.

Company officials won’t be able to comment on long-term plans until the deal is finalized, Justema said, but there are no immediate plans to move operations or people out of Bend.

Nanometrics, with headquarters in Milpitas and sales and service offices worldwide, has about 310 employees, according to Morningstar, a financial services Web site.

The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and to the approval of stockholders on both sides, but the deal is expected to close in the first half of the year, according to the companies’ joint press release.

Nanometrics, a publicly traded company, closed up 29 cents a share at $14.35 Thursday a day after the deal was announced, a new 52-week high. Accent Optical’s stock is not publicly traded.

If approved, the deal will create one of the largest metrology and process-control companies in the semiconductor industry. The combined company would have posted revenues of $110 million in the 12 months ended Oct. 31, 2005, according to the release.

The deal calls for Nanometrics to trade five million shares of its stock for all outstanding Accent shares and rights to acquire Accent shares. Nanometrics s

tockholders will own about 73 percent of the combined company.

The deal calls for Nanometrics to trade 5 million shares of its stock for all outstanding Accent shares and rights to acquire Accent shares. Nanometrics stockholders will own about 73 percent of the combined company.

Nanometrics President and CEO John Heaton will maintain that role as head of the combined companies.

Rhine will become Nanometrics’ chief strategy officer.

Accent was founded in 2000 with the purchase of Bio-Rad’s semiconductor metrology division. Rhine, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, moved his family and the company’s headquarters to Bend for lifestyle reasons, he told an audience at a venture capital conference in Bend last October.