Business briefs

17 Apr 2003

Including news from Cree, Planar Systems, Osram, Northrop Grumman and more.

•  Cree, US, has announced an 80% increase in its third-quarter revenue year-on-year. For the three months ended 30 March, the company posted a revenue of USD 60.2 million compared with USD 33.3 million for the same period last year. It also reported a quarterly net income of USD 10.6 million, a sharp turnaround compared with the USD 68.2 million loss reported in 2002's third quarter.

•  The Optical Fibre Technology Centre based at the University of Sydney, Australia has established a company to commerialize its work on photonic-crystal fibers. The new company is called Centaurus and its initial offerings include air-silica structured optical fibers as well as single or multi-channel capillaries.

•  Northrop Grumman's Electro-Optical Systems business is relocating the majority of its night-vision component manufacturing from its site in Garland, Texas to its facility in Tempe, Arizona. The company will reduce its workforce at Garland by 234, while 138 positions will be created at Tempe, resulting in 96 job losses. The move will begin this June and will be completed by the end of 2004.

•  Planar Systems, a US maker of flat-panel displays, has announced second quarter sales of USD 60.1 million, up 6% on the previous quarter and 23% year-on-year. The company says its gross profit reached a record USD 19.4 million.

•  Osram of Germany has opened what it claims is the world's most advanced optoelectronics chip factory. The company says it will be able to double its production capacity of LEDs, laser diodes and sensors by 2005. The new facility, which is in Regensburg, Germany, will create around 500 new jobs.

•  MicroVue, a UK-maker of microdisplays, has appointed Hitachi High-Technologies (HHT) as its distributor in Korea and Japan. HHT will now sell MicroVue's ferroelectric liquid-crystal on silicon microdisplays into the single-channel projection television market.

•  Acton Research, a US-based subsidiary of Roper Industries, has built a new facility in Massachusetts, US. The plant will house all of Acton's optical coating and instrumentation businesses and includes a class 10 000 cleanroom for assembly and test operations.