Business briefs

04 Jul 2003

Including news from Cambridge Display Technology, Bookham Technology, ThreeFive Photonics and more.

•  Cambridge Display Technology (CDT), the UK developer of light-emitting polymers (LEPs), is consolidating its operations. CDT is to close the plant it owns in Oxford, UK and move the scientists working there to its Cambridge headquarters. The firm is also relocating all of its process development activities to its Godmanchester facility, which is located just outside Cambridge.

•  Bookham Technology, the UK maker of optoelectronic components, is acquiring Cierra Photonics, a US thin-film specialist with under 40 staff, for USD 3.65 million. Bookham says it acquired the US company to gain a presence in the thin-film filter area of the optical communication market.

•  ThreeFive Photonics, a developer of integrated optoelectronic chips based in the Netherlands, has filed a “suspension of payments” request with the Dutch court. "Our existing financing situation does not allow us to sit through the current telecom winter," said Wouter Deelman, the company’s chief executive officer. "So far, our efforts to raise sufficient capital to continue operations have been unsuccessful."

•  Lumenis, the Israeli medical laser maker, has eliminated the position of chief operating officer (COO) from its management structure. Sagi Genger, the company’s current COO, stepped down and left the company this week.

•  RSoft Design Group, the US developer of software for modeling optical networks and optoelectronics, is opening a European office. The UK-based office will perform technical support and sales functions and will be headed by John Horgan, a former employee of Optima Research, UK.

•  DRS Technologies, US, is teaming up with Digital Imaging Infrared (DII) to produce and market pan-and-tilt thermal imaging cameras for homeland security applications. The systems covered by the agreement, the DI-5000 and DI-7000, combine DRS's uncooled microbolometer technology with a color TV camera.

Several new distribution agreements have been announced this week:

•  Firstsight Vision has been appointed as the new UK distributor for PULNiX cameras. The deal follows the recent acquisition of PULNiX by JAI, a Danish maker of machine vision cameras.

•  Pro-Lite Technology, a supplier of photonics equipment in the UK, will now represent Radiant Dyes, Litron Lasers and Laser Quantum in the UK and Ireland. Litron makes compact, flashlamp-pumped Q-switched Nd:YAG lasers, Radiant manufacturers laser dyes and Laser Quantum is a developer of diode-pumped solid-state lasers.