Business briefs

08 Nov 2002

Including news from Corning, GSI Lumonics, Rofin-Sinar, Toptica Photonics and more.

•  Corning has announced a major expansion plan for its Taiwan facility. Once complete, the facility will house all the equipment required for making LCD-glass sheets under one roof. The company will begin installing melting and forming lines in quarter one of 2003 and the first glass sheets are expected to be produced by early 2004. The global market for LCD glass is projected to grow at 25% annually over the next five years.

•  Toptica Photonics of Germany, a maker of customized diode laser systems, has opened a US sales office in Massachusetts. The office will also support the company's US-based OEM customers. Toptica plans to open a west-coast office in the near future.

•  Rofin-Sinar, the German maker of industrial lasers, has reported record sales of USD 64.2 million for its fourth quarter. Net income for the quarter rose to USD 2.3 million from USD 1.3 million in the preceding quarter. Although annual sales for 2002 remained stable at USD 222 million, net income slumped 30% to USD 5 million in 2002.

•  GSI Lumonics of Canada has posted sales of USD 37.4 million for its third quarter. The developer of materials processing equipment made a quarterly net loss of USD 5.4 million compared to net losses of USD 11.1 million in the previous quarter and USD 8.5 million year-on-year. GSI reduced its workforce by 12% to 840 employees in the quarter.

•  Linos of Germany has announced third quarter sales up 7% from the previous quarter to EURO 18.31 million. Orders for Linos's optomechanical systems have now increased for the fourth quarter in a row to EURO 20.03 million. The company says these results are a cause for cautious optimism.

•  Lumenis has received FDA clearance to market its pulsed CO₂ laser, the UltraPulse SurgiTouch, for a range of surgical applications. The company says the laser is the first system to combine technology developed at both Coherent's medical group and ESC Sharplan - the two companies that merged to form Lumenis in 2000.