New industrial laser unit: DILAS Diodenlaser GmbH (Mainz, Germany) formed a new business unit called DILAS Industrial Laser Systems. The independent business unit will focus on developing and manufacturing turnkey diode laser systems, driven by the success of its COMPACT Series fiber-coupled systems with power levels up to 500 W. “The business unit was formed to emphasize our dedication and commitment to the industrial customer base, as well as to strengthen DILAS’ overall diode laser portfolio,” said Jörg Neukum, director of sales and marketing of DILAS Diodenlaser GmbH. With an application laboratory on-site in Mainz and a network of highly qualified integration partners worldwide, DILAS Industrial Laser Systems is positioned to find solutions for a wide range of different applications.
Green LED collaboration: IMEC (Leuven, Belgium), Europe’s independent nanoelectronics research institute, and Taiyo Nippon Sanso Corp. (TNSC; Osaka, Japan), a solution provider in the compound semiconductor field, signed an agreement to jointly develop manufacturing technology for high efficiency light-emitting diode (LED) devices. The agreement marks the first time TNSC has collaborated with an advanced research center based in Europe. There is an increasing demand to develop brighter green LEDs for future applications such as backlights for LCD TVs. Under the agreement, TNSC and IMEC will develop high-efficiency green LED device manufacturing technology based on IMEC’s compound semiconductor device technology.
Accelerated fiber network upgrades: Pacnet (Hong Kong and Singapore) selected Infinera (Sunnyvale, CA) as one of its key suppliers to enable rapid network capacity upgrades across its Asian and U.S. networks. By deploying Infinera’s Digital Optical Networking system to upgrade its backhaul networks and interconnections, Pacnet can significantly shorten service-provisioning times compared to traditional dense-wave-division multiplexing (DWDM) systems. “We have seen an exponential increase in the demand for intra-Asia and trans-Pacific traffic in the past 18 months, driven largely by bandwidth-intensive applications,” said Pacnet CTO Wilfred Kwan. “Our customers often require large amounts of additional capacity at short-notice, thus we needed to build a next-generation network that is fast, responsive and able to scale up quickly.”
North American organic electronics: The Organic Electronics Association (OE-A; Frankfurt, Germany), a working group within the German Engineering Federation (VDMA) founded in 2004 as a key international industry association for organic and printed electronics and representing the whole value chain of this emerging industry, has established local representation in the North American market to improve service to members. The OE-A has appointed Barbara M. Fisher as regional manager OE-A in North America, to be located in Pittsburgh, PA. Recent new memberships in the U.S. reflect that the activities of the OE-A are important for the entire value chain: equipment manufacturer Kammann Machines and The Marketing Store have joined to drive membership in the OE-A to over 100 members, more than tripling its global membership.
Machine-vision alliance: Imperx (Boca Raton, FL), a provider of digital cameras for machine-vision systems, was selected by machine-vision system pioneer Cognex (Natick, MA) to become a member of the Cognex Acquisition Alliance. The Acquisition Alliance is a Cognex initiative to work with key camera vendors to provide integrated machine-vision system solutions to a mutual customer base. Cognex and Imperx will engage in cooperative marketing efforts and enhance their technical relationship to speed qualification of Imperx cameras for use with Cognex VisionPro software. Cognex business unit marketing manager John Petry said, “Imperx cameras are widely known in the industry for their high resolution, and they are ideal for some of the more demanding large-format applications that are faced by our VisionPro customers.”
Pico projector agreement: Microvision (Redmond, WA), a manufacturer of miniature projection display and image-capture products for mobility applications, and Asia Optical (Taichung, Taiwan), a manufacturer of electro-optical components, entered into a supply agreement for Asia Optical to produce products based on Microvision’s proprietary PicoP technology. Under the agreement, Asia Optical will manufacture PicoP display engines and Microvision’s first stand-alone accessory pico projector product. The first units manufactured under the agreement are expected to be completed later this year. Potential applications for the PicoP display engine include embedded or accessory projectors for mobile phones, personal media players, laptops, and hand-held gaming devices.
LED lighting market: The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) published a lighting report that provides a snapshot of where the LED market stands today. Annual energy savings from solid-state lighting in 2007 from the twelve niche markets analyzed is approximately 9 terawatt-hours, or the equivalent annual electrical output of 1.4 large coal power plants (1000 MW electric). Annual energy savings from solid-state lighting from the twelve niche markets analyzed could approach 212 terawatt-hours, or the equivalent annual electrical output of about 33 large coal power plants (1000 MW electric) if all twelve markets switched to LEDs overnight. Visit www.netl.doe.gov/ssl and click on the top item on the right hand side “Energy Savings Estimates of Light Emitting Diodes in Niche Lighting Applications.”
Medical laser lawsuit: An article in The Gazette (Colorado Springs) said that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission requested documents from Spectranetics (Colorado Springs, CO) in the wake of a sharp drop in its stock price after two federal agencies executed a search warrant at its headquarters. Spectranetics said it “intends to cooperate fully with the inquiry.” A suit was filed in Denver federal court against Spectranetics CEO John Schulte and CFO Guy Childs seeking unspecified damages and asking that all investors who bought Spectranetics stock between April 19, 2007, and September 4 be part of the class in the suit. That suit alleges the company’s financial results were inflated because it failed to disclose it lacked effective regulatory compliance controls, was illegally and extensively marketing its lasers for uses the FDA hadn’t approved, and other serious non-compliance issues.
Book writing award: Emil Wolf, world-renowned author and researcher in physical optics, was named winner of the 2008 Joseph W. Goodman Book Writing Award. The biennial award, co-sponsored by SPIE (Bellingham, WA) and the OSA (Washington, DC), was awarded for Wolf’s book Introduction to the Theory of Coherence and Polarization of Light published in October 2007 by Cambridge University Press--the first book to provide a unified treatment of the phenomena of coherence and polarization. Wolf is Wilson Professor of Optical Physics at the University of Rochester and co-authored with Max Born Principles of Optics, one of the most cited science books of the 20th century. “The committee selected Emil Wolf’s book for its excellent writing, rigor, and clarity. The decision was unanimous,” said Jose Sasian, a professor at the University of Arizona.
Applied physics award: This year’s $5,000 dollar Julius Springer Prize for Applied Physics will be awarded to Phaedon Avouris, IBM Fellow and manager of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at IBM’s Research Division at the Watson Research Center, and Tony Heinz, David M. Rickey Professor in the Departments of Physics and Electrical Engineering at Columbia University. Avouris’ and Heinz’s studies of the electronic properties of nanotubes and graphene aim at developing a future nanoelectronic technology with devices that will be vastly more compact, fast, and energy efficient than current silicon-based devices. The Julius Springer Prize has been awarded annually since 1998 by the editors-in-chief of the Springer journals Applied Physics A - Materials Science & Processing and Applied Physics B - Lasers and Optics.
Fast 50 award: nLIGHT Corporation (Vancouver, WA), a supplier of high-power semiconductor lasers and high-performance fibers, announced that Deloitte recognized nLIGHT as one of the top companies in its prestigious Technology Fast 50 program for Washington State. The award is part of the Technology Fast 50 program, which ranks the 50 fastest growing technology, media, telecommunication, and life sciences companies headquartered in Washington State based on the percentage revenue growth over the five past years. Based on revenue growth from 2003 to 2007, nLIGHT was ranked #3 in the Technology Fast 50 program for Washington State. “We are honored that Deloitte continues to recognize nLIGHT for its strong growth, for the fourth consecutive year,” said Scott Keeney, nLIGHT president and CEO.
Thermal-management business unit: Nextreme Thermal Solutions (Durham, NC), provider of microscale thermal and power management products for the electronics industry, appointed Jim Mundell as senior VP and general manager of its newly created thermal management products business unit. Nextreme says it is focusing on its thermal management products and aggressively engaging with the telecommunications and photonics markets to enable the integration of its thin-film thermoelectric OptoCooler products into optoelectronic devices. Nextreme’s products act as solid-state heat pumps and add thermal management functionality directly into the package to maintain the device’s temperature at optimal conditions.
People in the news: Two years after the inauguration of MINATEC (Grenoble, France), the research and technological Center for Micro and Nanotechnologies, Jean-Charles Guibert was appointed first director of MINATEC after serving as a major actor in the conception and establishment of this center of excellence. In the 80’s and 90’s, Guibert was actively involved in managing the development of lithographic activities at CEA-Leti and was appointed microelectronics program manager in 1997 and deputy manager in charge of strategic marketing and international partnership development in 2000. In 2004, Guibert was appointed director for the technology transfer and commercialization activities of CEA.
Mike Mandina, president of optics company Optimax (Ontario, NY), was inducted into the New York State Business Hall of Fame for his role as chairman of the non-profit organization FAME, the Finger Lakes Advanced Manufacturers’ Enterprise, which uses industrial collaboration to strengthen educational outreach and student mentoring and spread the passion for careers in science, math, technology, and engineering. For more information on FAME, contact Mandina at [email protected].
Privately owned glass parts manufacturer Swift Glass (Elmira, NY) appointed Vince Capozzi director of business development. Reporting directly to the president and CEO Dan Burke, Capozzi will work toward enhancing the sales and marketing efforts of Swift Glass as well as engaging new product lines and expanding international sales territories. Capozzi comes to Swift after 18 years with Schott North America.