Business briefs

12 Dec 2003

Including news from GSI Lumonics, Corning, DALSA, Sensors Unlimited and more.

•  GSI Lumonics has acquired Westwind Air Bearings of the UK for $37 million in cash. Westwind makes high-precision rotary components based on air-bearing-spindle technology. “Westwind’s technology and products strengthen our position in the electronics manufacturing and optical scanning markets at a time when these markets are recovering,” said GSI’s president Charles Winston.

•  Sensors Unlimited, a maker of infrared imaging products based on indium-gallium-nitride, has received a follow-on $2 million contract from the US Air Force. The one-year Phase 1b contract will see the US firm develop the industry’s first high-frame-rate camera combining imaging and ranging. The camera will use an in-pixel digitized, monolithic PIN/APD focal plane array.

•  DALSA has received a C$2.1 million follow-on order from an undisclosed customer for custom-built image sensors. The Canadian imaging specialist says the chips will be the “eyes” in a sophisticated imaging system that the customer is developing for space-based remote sensing.

•  Corning is consolidating its high-purity fused silica and fluoride crystal materials production into its Canton, New York facility. The company is also moving its fluoride crystals components finishing business in with Corning Tropel's operation in Fairport, New York. As a result, Corning is closing its Charleston, South Carolina and North Brookfield, Massachusetts sites, which will affect 135 employees. Corning estimates the charges for these actions will come in around $80 million pre-tax.

•  New Wave Research, a US developer of laser systems for microelectronic and analytical applications, has opened a sales and support office in China. The Shanghai-based office is the company’s third in Asia, the others being located in Taiwan and Japan.

•  Defence specialist BAE Systems has been awarded a three-year, $4.5 million contract by the Department of the Interior of the US Army. Under this contract, the company plans to lower the manufacturing costs of its advanced MicroIR infrared focal plane arrays by a factor of eight.

•  Sira, the UK-based electro-optics systems developer, has granted HanVision, a Korean camera maker, a license to manufacture miniature radiation tolerant cameras based on a Sira design. The cameras will be used in the nuclear power industry and can allegedly withstand more than 5 Mrad without suffering any ill-effects.