Business briefs

27 Feb 2004

Including news from GSI Lumonics, DisplaySearch, Osram Opto Semiconductors and more.

•  GSI Lumonics has announced that its sales for fiscal year 2003 rose 16.7% to $185.6 million compared with $159.1 million in 2002. The 2003 net loss of $2.2 million was an improvement of $25.5 million over the loss of $27.7 million for 2002. “We are experiencing improved demand in all three segments of our business in this most recent quarter," said GSI’s president Charles Winston. “We are maintaining a cautiously optimistic approach to the recovery as we continue to focus on cost controls and operational efficiency improvements.”

•  DisplaySearch, the displays market analyst, has predicted that liquid-crystal displays (LCD) will overtake cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors on a unit basis for the first time during 2004. It says that LCDs will surpass CRTs in the US in quarter one of 2004 and worldwide in the second quarter of this year.

•  The Dow Chemical Company, US, and Osram Opto Semiconductors, Germany, have signed a commercial supply agreement. The deal will see Dow’s Lumation light-emitting polymers being put to use in Osram’s Pictiva polymeric light-emitting diode (pLED) display modules. Specific terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

•  UK-based optoelectronic chip maker Intense Photonics says that it is expanding its headcount and facilities to handle demands from new markets such as printing and defense. Having increased its staff numbers from 50 in late 2003 to today’s 65, the firm says it expects this trend to continue throughout the year. Intense says that it has also recently extended its cleanroom facilities by 25%.

•  Nikon of Japan says it has developed a lens-based scanning ArF excimer laser stepper which contains the world’s highest NA lens (NA 0.92). The company says the system is ideal for mass-producing 65 nm or smaller devices. Nikon added that it will begin taking orders for the stepper in April.

•  ElectroPhysics of the US has appointed BFi OPTiLAS as its exclusive European distributor. BFi will sell ElectroPhysics’ full range of near-infrared and thermal imaging systems.