Business briefs

13 Jun 2003

Including news from Sony, Cree Lighting, Cymer, LINOS and more.

•  Consumer electronics giant Sony will begin mass-producing active-matrix, full-color organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display panels in spring 2004. The company is investing ¥9bn ($76m) to establish a production line capable of making approximately 300 000 panels per month. The “Super Top Emission” panels will be targeted at mobile devices.

•  Cree Lighting of the US, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cree, has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against substrate-maker AXT. The lawsuit concerns a patent relating to semiconductor devices manufactured using a gallium-nitride-based buffer technology. The patent, which is owned by Boston University, is licensed to Cree Lighting on an exclusive basis. Cree Lighting is seeking damages and an injunction against the infringement.

•  Cymer, a US developer of excimer sources, expects its second quarter revenue to come in around 12% lower than previously announced levels. “The expected shortfall is attributable primarily to the push out of krypton fluoride (KrF) light sources that we had expected to ship during the current quarter into subsequent quarters,” said Cymer’s chairman Bob Akins.

•  LINOS of Germany has opened a new sales office in France. The new subsidiary, called LINOS Photonics SARL, is based in Lyon and will be headed up by Carsten Gohlke, a former regional sales manager for the company. Gohlke believes that the location is an ideal place for the LINOS group to strengthen its European sales and reckons that an increase of up to 25% in annual revenue is possible.

•  Tsunami Photonics, a maker of fast test system software for photonic components, and PXIT, a maker of PXI-based modular test systems, have completed the merger of their respective businesses. Both companies are based in Dublin, Ireland. The new venture will trade under the PXIT name and will focus on providing test solutions for manufacturers of optical and optoelectronic components.