Business briefs

09 Jul 2004

Including news from Thales, Alcatel, Planar Systems, Lumileds Lighting and more.

General company news:

•  Thales and Alcatel have established a joint research lab in France focusing on optoelectronics and microelectronics. The lab, which will be known as the Alcatel-Thales III-V Lab, will develop III-V based components such as modulators, infrared imaging photodetectors and high-power laser diodes. The lab will house 100 researchers between two sites in Essonne and Palaiseau.

•  Planar Systems, US, has received FDA approval to market its flat-panel DomeC5i system for displaying mammograms. Planar says this is the first time that the FDA has approved flat-panel technology to view mammograms. Up until now, only traditional cathode-ray tube technology had the FDA's stamp of approval.

•  Polytec PI, a provider of laser-based measurement systems to North America, has reorganized to become Polytec Inc. The move completes the separation of Polytec and PI's North American operations. According to Polytec, this change mirrors the physical and financial separation of its parent businesses, Polytec and Physik Instrumente (PI) of Germany, in 2002.

•  Firstsight Vision, a UK distributor of industrial and scientific vision components, has become part of the Stemmer Imaging group of Germany. Firstsight says the management and staff at its Tongham, UK, office will not change. All customer interaction will continue to be handled though the UK office.

Contracts:

•  Lumileds Lighting, US, has issued a 4-year purchase order to German optoelectronic fabrication kit maker Aixtron. The purchase order is said to include a "significant number" of Aixtron planetary reactors, which are used to fabricate Lumileds' Luxeon LEDs.

•  e2v technologies, UK, is supplying 36 CCD cameras for China's large sky area multi-object spectroscopic telescope (LAMOST). The 36 4k x 4k CCDs will perform spectral surveys of the night sky. "We hope that e2v's new 4k x 4k chip could become the new world standard for astronomy in time," said Ralph Holtom of e2v.

•  DALSA of Canada has received an C$2.2 million order from Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions for its high performance CCD chips. Intergraph will use DALSA's 7k x 4k and 3k x 2k sensors in its aerial Z/I digital mapping camera. Intergraph says that the chips allow its camera to capture images with a ground resolution of 1.5 inches per pixel.

Distribution agreements:

•   Liteye Systems, US, has signed an exclusive reseller agreement with BFi OPTiLAS covering Western Europe and a non-exclusive agreement throughout Eastern Europe. The deal covers Liteye's range of miniature high-resolution OLED microdisplays for head-mounted applications.

•   Laser Physics of the UK is now offering Ocean Optics' range of spectrometers and accessories. Copies of Ocean Optics' catalog are also available from the UK firm.