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26 Oct 2007
Featuring news from Philips, Toshiba, Corning, II-VI, Michelson Diagnostics, Konarka, Zecotek, StockerYale and others.
• Philips Solid-State Lighting Solutions, the entity formed by Philips' acquisition of Color Kinetics, has been awarded $250k by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology to develop a new test system for calculating and measuring the quality of a light source. The company is charged with developing sources capable of producing a broad range of spectral power distributions within the visible spectrum for testing and evaluation, as well as the establishment of colorimetric and photometric metrics. There are many known limitations to the current metric, according to Philips, and a better system will allow accurate measurement of how light sources render colors. Adaptation of an accurate and consistent ratings system is said to be crucial for expanding the use of LED lighting systems.
• Toshiba Television Central Europe (TTCE), a production and sales facility for Toshiba LCD TVs in Kobierzyce, Poland, has been officially opened and has ramped up to full-scale production. The company already produces LCDs in the UK, and the new plant provides a second production base to meet demand and reinforce its presence in the pan-European market. The company targets production of three million units in Europe by fiscal year 2009, with the main focus on large-sized LCD TVs of 32 inches and above.
• Corning announced net sales of $1.55 billion for Q3 2007, a rise of 21% year-on-year. Net income was $617 million, up 41% over the same period. The display technologies segment was favorably impacted by the dollar-to-yen exchange rate, and the company anticipates running its LCD manufacturing operations at full capacity in the fourth quarter. The telecoms segment benefited from increased demand for fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) products and private network projects.
• II-VI reported a rise in revenues of 20% to $72.6 million for its first quarter of its fiscal year 2008, allowing the company to mark three consecutive quarters of record revenues. Strong demand for its infrared, near-infrared, military and materials products was said to be behind the growth, and the company expects the business to gain further momentum through the remainder of its fiscal year. It also stated that additional capacity will be added in its infrared optics business segment.
• Michelson Diagnostics, a UK developer of optical coherence tomography (OCT) medical imaging equipment, has secured £600k ($1.2 million) of early-stage funding in an investment round led by London Seed Capital. The funds will be used to further enhance the OCT technology and pursue in vivo trials in a clinical environment.
• An expanded intellectual property agreement has given Konarka sole licensee and sublicense rights to certain intellectual property developed by DuPont and the University of California at Santa Barbara. The agreement, covering photovoltaic applications and related technology, sustains Konarka's position in the development of organic photovoltaic technology and the commercialization of its Power Plastic material, according to the company.
• Zecotek has appointed Market Tech as exclusive US sales representative for their new line of fiber laser products. The company also announced the first order for the Zecotek GLF-540-0.2 green fiber laser series from a US customer, through Market Tech.
• DataLase will cooperate with Domino AmJet, a US supplier of laser and inkjet technologies, to print lot and expiration codes onto pharmaceutical cartons and labels using Datalase's Packmark laser marking process. The technique developed by the UK marking and printing company uses a CO2 laser to produce a black image on a specially-applied white background without ablation.
• An agreement to develop thin-film encapsulation (TFE) technologies and materials has been reached between Sunic System, a producer of vacuum deposition equipment for OLEDs, and Novaled, a provider of doping technology and materials for organic electronics. The collaboration aims to improve the deposition process and working lifetime of TFE, and will also allow Sunic to become a major player for organic TFE and organic flexible devices, according to the company.
• Ultratech announced net sales of $25.2 million in Q3 2007 for its photolithography and laser processing equipment, compared to $33.9 million during the equivalent quarter of 2006. The company's net loss was $0.9 million, an improvement compared with the $2.6 million loss posed in Q3 2006. A focus on continued cost discipline and operational management to improve results for the long term was stated by the company.
• StockerYale, a US manufacturer of structured light lasers and specialty optics, has acquired Spectrode, a developer of pulsed thulium-doped fiber laser technology. Continued development of Spectrode's gain-switched fiber laser will be led by Min Jiang on behalf of StockerYale in support of future defense related applications. Spectrode's Parviz Tayebati will join the StockerYale board.
People
• James Wyant of the University of Arizona has been elected vice-president of the Optical Society of America for 2008. He will become president-elect in 2009 and OSA president in 2010. Wyant served as SPIE president in 1986, and becomes only the fourth person to be elected president of both the two major international optics societies.
• Newport, a US supplier of lasers and photonics instrumentation, has announced the retirement of chairman and CEO Robert Deuster. Robert Phillippy has assumed the role of CEO and will serve on the company's board, and Kenneth Potashner has been appointed non-executive chairman of the Board.
• Thomas Waechter has been appointed president of JDSU's communications test & measurement business. Waechter will be responsible for global sales, product development and operations, and report to president and CEO Kevin Kennedy. Helmut Berg, current communications test and measurement president, will report to Waechter with a focus on strategy and corporate development.
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