Business briefs

18 Nov 2005

Including news from Sony, NEC, Emcore, Osram, Infineon, GSI Group and more.

General company news:

•  Consumer electronics giants Sony and NEC plan to establish a joint venture designing and selling optical disc drives by April 2006. Sony will hold a 55% stake in the venture with NEC taking the remainder. The new company will combine NEC's strength in LSIs with Sony's expertise in optical pick-ups.

•  Osram of Germany has licensed patents relating to white LEDs to Australian firm Lednium. The patents cover the use of blue-emitting InGaN chips that, when combined with a suitable phosphor converter, emit white light. Lednium plans to use the technology its range of multi-chip LED lamps.

•  Applied Photonics of the US and Jenoptik Automatisierungstechnik of Germany have signed a deal to co-operate on the development of laser-based instruments for cutting flat-panel display glass.

•  Emcore of the US has purchased privately-held Phasebridge of California for an undisclosed sum. Emcore says it will integrate Phasebridge into its Ortel division and expects its projected fiscal 2006 revenue to increase by $2 million as a result of the transaction. Phasebridge specialises in fiber-optic gyroscopes for weapons and aerospace guidance.

•  Infineon of Germany is selling its manufacturing facility in the Czech Republic to Siemens VDO automotive. The two firms will initially work in parallel at the Trutnov site, with Siemens VDO finally taking over the plant from 1 July 2006. Siemens says that it intends to recruit preferentially from the factory's current workforce of around 500 staff. Infineon will have sold-off its entire fiber optics business once the sale of the Trutnov facility is complete.

•  The US district court of Delaware has ruled that SRU Biosystems of Woburn, MA, infringed on a patent exclusively licensed to Corning for optical biosensors. Corning licensed Patent 4,815,843 from Artifical Sensing Instruments of Switzerland and filed the lawsuit against SRU in July 2003.

•  GSI Group has opened a new facility in China to serve growing markets for the firm's laser and precision motion systems. Located in Suzhou Industrial Park, Jiangsu, the 5000 m² factory will employ 80 staff and complements existing sales and service centers in Beijing, Shenzhen and Shanghai.

•  Firecomms has unveiled what it claims is the first fiber-optic transceiver based on a high-speed resonant cavity LED. The device has been designed for use in POF-based media-orientated systems transport (MOST) networks, which are being introduced to connect up a car's entertainment system.

Contracts:

•  UK-based Specialised Imaging, a maker of high-speed imaging systems, has won a contract to supply QinetiQ, UK, with six of its SIR2 cameras. The value of the contract was not disclosed. QinetiQ says it will use the new cameras to replace high-speed still and film-based synchro-ballistic cameras at three of its missile ranges.

•  Materials processing specialist ECD Ovonics, US, has received a contract worth $1.3 million from the United States Display Consortium to develop a roll-to-roll optical inspection system for web display substrates. The high-resolution system will be able to detect various defects on flexible substrates up to 24 inches wide and spot particulate contamination down to 1 micron.

•  SPI Lasers, UK, has signed two contracts to supply its redENERGY pulsed fiber lasers to undisclosed customers in the laser marking sector. According to the firm, the contracts could be worth a combined total of up to $4.8 million by the end of 2006.