Information displays awards announced
This year the SID/Information Display (Norwalk, CT) Display of the Year Gold Award went to Eastman Kodak (Rochester, NY) for its AM550L organic light-emitting-diode (OLED) display. The Display of the Year Silver Award and Display product of the year Gold Award went to Samsung Electronics (Seoul, Korea) for its 40-in. wide-XGA TFT-LCD module and its 43- and 50-in. rear-projection HDTV monitors, respectively. Sony (Tokyo, Japan) won the Display Product of the Year Silver Award for incorporating several new technologies into its KF-60DX100 Grand Wega 60-in. rear-projection LCD HDTV. Optiva (San Francisco, CA) won the Display Material or Component of the Year Gold Award for its Thin Crystal FilmT Polarizers. And DuPont Holographics (Wilmington, DE) won the Display Material or Component of the Year Silver Award for its holographic reflectors.
Corning sells Corning Precision Lens to 3M
3M (St. Paul, MN) has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Corning Precision Lens (Cincinnati, OH), a wholly owned subsidiary of Corning (Corning, NY) and the largest worldwide manufacturer of lens systems for rear projection televisions, for $850 million in cash. "This transaction affirms our strategy of accessing fast-growing markets by acquiring companies with strong market positions and technologies that we can leverage with our own strengths to drive faster long-term organic growth," said W. James McNerney Jr., 3M chairman and CEO. Corning plans to use the proceeds of the sale to reduce debt and strengthen its balance sheet.
Coast Guard awards project to FNT
The U.S. Coast Guard awarded a contract to Fiber Network Training and Consulting Services (FNT; Phoenix, AZ) to design, provide system integration of, and supply components for a fully self-contained, solar-powered remote fiberoptic security system for a classified project location. Although much of the Coast Guard project is security sensitive, the company will say that the system comprises a combination of infrared cameras, microwave Doppler radar detectors, solar charging panels, battery storage with automated load control, fiberoptic WDM transceivers, multiscreen video monitoring, multiplexing digital recorders, server storage, and a programmable alarm station for multipoint surveillance.
MEMS technology to reach $3 billion in 6 years
Growth of commercial microelectromechanical-systems (MEMS) technology is energizing the MEMS-based sensors market in North America, according to a new report from Frost & Sullivan (San Jose, CA). The research firm estimates that the North American MEMS sensors market generated revenues of $1.3 billion in 2001 and is expected to reach $3 billion in 2008. Market growth can be seen in advanced automotive applications such as inertial sensors, tire-monitoring systems, wireless MEMS sensing technologies for global positioning satellite systems, and seismic monitoring. In addition, collaborative efforts between academic and industry researchers provide a thrust to the development of sensor-based home diagnostic equipment such, while new military applications include airborne radar and electronic warfare systems.
CDT buys Opsys OLED business in England
Cambridge Display Technology (CDT; Cambridge, England) has acquired the OLED business of Opsys (Oxford, England). The acquisition includes the intellectual property (IP), commercialization, and technology development of the company's organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display technologies. Under the terms of the agreement, CDT gains ownership of all rights to Opsys' dendrimer OLED technology. CDT will also take over the management of the commercial and technical development of Opsys' business in England, which includes facilities and staff dedicated to dendrimer OLED technology.
Hassaun A. Jones-Bey
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Also in the news . . .
With the intention of exploiting new markets in biotechnology and medicine, Jenoptik (Jena, Germany) is increasing its stake in part-subsidiary Jena-Optronik, a German maker of optical and optoelectronic sensors for aerospace applications, from 49% to 75% while fellow part-owner Astrium's (Munich, Germany) stake will decrease from 51% to 25%. . . . John Clarke and Alexander Pines, members of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Materials Sciences Division (Berkeley, CA), have been named by Scientific American magazine to its first annual Scientific American 50 list for their "innovations in magnetic resonance imaging with weak magnetic fields" (see "Optically pumped xenon yields highly sensitive NMR biosensor," p. 36). . . . Nvision (Coppell, TX) is expanding its North American technical center based near Detroit, MI, to increase its consulting services in the laser-scanning field.