Business briefs

08 Apr 2005

Including news from Infineon, CDT, Synova, Newport and more.

•  Delta Optoelectronics has established Taiwan’s first pilot line for producing full-colour polymer light-emitting diode (P-OLED) displays using ink jet printing. The line, at the Hsin Chu Science Park, is based around licensed technology developed at the UK firm Cambridge Display Technology. It is able to manufacture displays on 370x470;;mm glass substrates.

•  nLight, the US developer of high-power semiconductor lasers, has appointed Laser Lines as the exclusive distributor of its products in the UK. Laser Lines will be responsible for sales and service of nLights visible and near-infrared diode lasers.

•  DALSA, the Canadian maker of imaging equipment, has received contracts worth $2.9 million to supply image sensor chips to two firms in the parcel sorting sector. Two-thirds of sensors are planned for delivery later this year with the remainder in 2006.

•  Synova, the Swiss pioneer of water jet-guided laser technology, has opened a subsidiary in Japan to help serve its customers in the region. In 2004, 40% of the firm’s revenue came from semiconductor and electronics firms in Asia Pacific and Synova has recently opened similar offices in Korea and Hong Kong.

•  Tinsley Industries has opened a new 30,000 sq. ft. facility in Richmond, California to grind and polish large mirror segments required by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The facility will be equipped with nine specially designed computer-controlled polishing machines and are expected to be able to process all 18 of JWST’s mirror segments in about 2.5 years.

•  ROBOT Visual Systems, a subsidiary of Jenoptik, has been awarded a $6 million contract from the Sultanate of Oman to equip the country’s entire road network with digital-camera based radar sensors for monitoring the speed of vehicles.

•  Exar, the US designer of integrated circuits, is acquiring a significant portion of Infineon’s optical networking business unit. The acquisition includes assets related to Resilient Packet Ring, Fiber Channel over SONET/SDH and TDM Framer products. At the end of January, Infineon sold most of its fiber-optic business to Finisar.

•  Last April, Nichia, the Japanese maker of white LEDs, filed a lawsuit against Sharper Image Corporation, US, alleging that the latter was selling products that contain white LEDs that were infringing Nichia patents. The case has now been resolved and Sharper Image and Nichia have entered a new business arrangement.

•  Newport is divesting its loss-making robotic systems operations in Richmond, California in order to concentrate its core business of photonics. The operations represent less than 5% of Newport’s net sales and are expected to lose $2.5 to $3.5 million in the first quarter of 2005.