Business briefs

27 Jan 2006

Including news from Mesophotonics, CVI, MagiQ Technologies, Cymer and more.

•  Nanometrics, a supplier of metrology equipment, is to acquire Accent Optical Technologies, a specialist in process control. The 5 million share deal values Accent at $80.9 million will create one of the largest metrology and process control companies in the semiconductor capital equipment industry.

•  Cymer has received an order from a leading memory-device manufacturer to replace 27 light sources with its ELS-6000 deep ultraviolet lasers for photolithography applications. Last year Cymer shipped its 3000th light source.

•  Mesophotonics of the UK has signed a marketing agreement with Raman spectroscopy giant HORIBA Jobin Yvon. The latter will now distribute Mesophotonics' Klarite substrate for surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), which is described as being one million times more effective than traditional Raman substrates.

•  MagiQ Technologies, Silicon Graphics, Qucor and the University of Melbourne have formed a joint venture to develop next generation quantum cryptography devices. The group has been awarded $2.5 million ($3.3 Australian dollars) from the Victorian state government and will focus its efforts on commercializing single photon sources.

•  Xtreme Technologies, the joint venture between Jenoptik and Ushio, has received an undisclosed amount of funding from Intel's strategic investment arm to accelerate development of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light sources. According to the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors, EUV lithography, which requires sources with a wavelength of just 13.5 nm, will start displacing existing techniques by the end of 2010.

•  According to SPIE, this year's Photonics West conference in San Jose, California, US, featured more than 1000 exhibitors, 2800 technical presentations and 80 courses. New events included a series of market seminars looking at displays, nanophotonics and nanotechnology, and optoelectronics.

•  CVI and Hyperion Development have joined forces to develop new types of opto-mechanical assemblies and sub-assemblies. The strategic alliance brings together CVI's expertise in optical components and Hyperion's optical system design and analysis skills.

•  Intralase, US, has claimed that its FS laser is the first femtosecond laser cleared for use in refractive and corneal surgery. The software-driven laser replaces the mechanical blade used during LASIK procedures and is said to create corneal incisions with unmatched micron-level accuracy.