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16 Jul 2004
Including news from Lumileds Lighting, Jenoptik, Aixtron, Zygo and more.
General company news:
• Lumileds Lighting, US, has settled its pending litigation with high-brightness LED maker Epistar. The allegations and counter allegations centered on Lumileds' US patent number 5,008,718. As part of the settlement agreement, Lumileds has granted Epistar a limited license to use its absorbing-substrate AlGaInP LED technology. The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
• Jenoptik Laser Optik Systeme of Germany has acquired all of the shares in German start-up Innovavent. Founded in May 2003, the start-up develops solid-state lasers for micro materials processing applications. Jenoptik says that it intends to "invest heavily" in the new company over the coming years.
• Aixtron of Germany is participating in a three-year Belarus-based project looking into LEDs fabricated on silicon substrates. The program will investigate whether silicon is a viable low-cost alternative to today's common but expensive sapphire or silicon carbide substrates.
Contracts:
• Zygo, US, has received a $3.8 million order from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to develop equipment for fabricating thin fused silica optics for the National Ignition Facility. "Thin fused silica optics located in the final optic assembly must have fabricated surfaces that are essentially flawless," said Sol Laufer of Zygo. "This requires new and improved fabrication and testing techniques, as well as equipment to accomplish thin fused silica optics cost effectively."
• GSI Lumonics has received a $6 million order for multiple WaferTrim systems from a US-based integrated circuit manufacturer. The systems are expected to be delivered in the third quarter of 2004.
• Diversified Optical Products (DiOP), a US maker of thermal imaging components, has received a five year, $9 million contract from BAE Systems, US. The deal will see DiOP design and fabricate the infrared objective lens assemblies for BAE's thermal weapon sight program. The initial contract is for 11,700 units, although this could rise to 28,000 placing the contract value in excess of $24 million over the five-year term.
• FLIR Systems, US, has received a series of orders totaling $7.4 million for its infrared imaging cameras. The cameras will be used in Northrop Grumman's Litening AT target pods, which are being deployed on the US Air Force's B-52 and F-16 aircraft. FLIR expects to complete the order by early 2005.
• Micronic of Sweden has received an order for its MP80+ multi-purpose laser pattern generation system from a Korea-based firm. The system is scheduled to ship in the first quarter of 2005 and can be used in 100-nm pattern generation applications such as chip-scale and wafer level packaging and passive matrix LCDs.
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