Business briefs

04 Apr 2003

Including news from Zygo, VISX, Oxley Avionics, CRL Opto and more.

•  Zygo, US, is establishing a new organization called Zygo Applied Optics (ZAO) in response to its growing involvement in the defense and aerospace electo-optics systems industries. Zygo says ZAO will strengthen its precision optical instrumentation business by adding electro-optical design and development capabilities.

•  VISX of the US and Nidek of Japan, makers of ophthalmic and vision correction equipment, have agreed a global litigation settlement and patent cross-license. VISX will also pay USD 9 million in settlement of Nidex's antitrust and related claims. "This settlement avoids years of additional legal expenses and enables us to focus on the growing market for laser vision correction," said VISX's chairman Liz Davila.

•  Oxley Avionics, UK, has won a EURO 1.46 million contract from the UK's Royal Air Force (RAF). The night-vision-goggle specialist will now supply the RAF with LED-based visible and covert external lighting for its fleet of two hundred Tornado aircraft.

•  CRL Opto, a UK-based microdisplay developer, and Moxtek of the US, a supplier of optical components, have formed a strategic alliance. The deal will combine CRL's high-resolution liquid-crystal-on-silicon (LCoS) microdisplay technology with Moxtek's components in projection and near-eye products.

•  NEMOPTIC, a French maker of bistable liquid-crystal displays, has received EURO 12 million of third-round financing from Credit Lyonnais Private Equity. The company will use the cash to promote its bistable nematic (BiNem) technology. The BiNem display will be the first "color paper like" zero-power flat panel display on the market, according to NEMOPTIC.

•  Physik Instrumente, the nano-positioning specialist based in Germany, has won a contract to supply nearly 300 actuators and multi-axis motion controllers for the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT). With a hexagonal mirror array measuring 11 m in diameter, SALT is the largest single telescope in the southern hemisphere.