Business briefs

18 Aug 2006

Includes news from Osram Opto Semiconductors, Quintessence Photonics, Optikos, and others.

• QPC Lasers, the parent company of Quintessence Photonics Corporation (QPC), expects to double its revenue in 2006. Sales for the last six months totaled $842,910, up by 61% on the same period last year. Based on QPC's order backlog, the company expects revenue for calendar year 2006 to be in the range of $2-3 million, a substantial increase on 2005 revenues of $1.07 million. The company has won new contracts totaling $4.6 million during the latest quarter, from which $2.3 million of revenue is expected in the next 12 months (see Quintessence Photonics wins contract to develop high-precision optical sensing lasers). Net loss for the last six months totaled $6.3 million, although the figure includes a series of one-off expenses.

• Osram Opto Semiconductors plans to intensify its research and development work on organic LEDs (OLEDs). The company will focus on small-molecule technology for illumination applications, while continuing to develop polymer-based solutions for its existing business in OLED displays. Research will focus on the design and implementation of specific device architectures, increasing OLED efficiency and lifespan, and scaling the devices to larger areas. Experts are also involved in creating the right conditions for high-volume production.

• The European Conference and Exhibition on Optical Communication (ECOC) has already received almost 1000 proposals for technical papers for this year's event in Cannes. Falling under the topic of this year's conference -- From Devices to Network Applications -- papers include technology issues across the optics, broadband, FTTx and network solutions arenas. Running alongside this year's event will be the ONE conference, a market-focused seminar for component, systems and network managers looking to keep pace with today's rapidly changing optical communications market. The ONE conference is organized by Institute of Physics Publishing, the publishers of optics.org and Optics & Laser Europe.

• Universal Display Corporation has reported a white OLED light source with an efficacy of 31 lm/W, which corresponds to an external quantum efficiency of 29% at a luminance of 850 cd/m² - one of the highest recorded for a single OLED. The white lighting panel, which measures 25?25 cm², exploits the company's phosphorescent OLED technology, as well as improved light coupling techniques being developed at Universal Display. The result was reported at SPIE's Optics and Photonics Conference in San Diego, California, and follows the company's announcement of a 40% increase in sales for the first six months of 2006 (see Universal Display sells more, but also spends more). At the same conference, Universal Display and Novaled announced a red phosphorescent OLED device with a record power efficiency of 12 lm/W at a brightness of 1000 cd/m².

• EpiValley, a Korean manufacturer of high-brightness GaN-based LEDs, has ordered a new MOCVD system from Aixtron. The German equipment vendor, which has seen its order books swell recently thanks to renewed demand for its reactors, will supply the Kwangju City-based company with a Thomas Swan CRIUS system that can handle 30 2-inch wafers. EpiValley makes epiwafers for both green and blue power LED applications, and gained some of its technological expertise through its November 2005 acquisition of KT Mark, a company that was launched by the Korean Ministry of Science and Technology in 1993.

• Photronics, a developer of photomasks and other imaging technology solutions for the electronics industry has reported third-quarter sales of $108.2 m, down by 5.9% compared with $114.9 m for Q3 2005. Semiconductor photomasks accounted for just over 80% of revenues during Q3 2006, while sales of photomasks for flat-panel displays accounted for most of the remainder. Net income for Q3 2006 amounted to $4.6 m compared to the prior year's Q3 income of $14.8 m, while net income for the first nine months of 2006 amounted to $19.5 m, compared with $29.9 m for the same period last year.

• Cambridge Display Technology has reported second-quarter revenues of $2.7 m, almost the same as for the same period in 2005, with most revenues coming from license fees and royalties. Gross profit for Q2 2006 was $2.4 m, compared with $2.0 m for the corresponding period last year. But the company still reported a net loss for Q2 2006 of $5.0 m, an improvement on the $6.7 m reported for the same quarter in 2005.

• Optikos has been awarded a $3.4 m contract from ITT Systems, for the development of an optical focus verification system (OFVS) for telescope-to-film and telescope-to-CCD camera image-plane alignment. The contract will support the 45th US Air Force Space Wing operations at Cape Canaveral, Florida, where the OFVS will be used on five of the large-aperture telescopes used to track all launches from Cape Canaveral, including the Space Shuttle.

• Plextronics, a developer of active-layer technology for printed electronic devices, has been awarded $13.1 m in Series A financing. Birchmere Ventures led the round which included significant capital from Firelake Capital, Draper Triangle Ventures and other investors. Plextronics has raised a total of $16.4 million since its July 2002 inception.

• The UK's National Physical Laboratory has acquired a MSA-400 microsystems analyser from Polytec to support the metrology and dynamic characterization of MEMS and other micro-structure devices as part of the CEMMNT project. The Polytec MSA-400 covers frequencies to 1 MHz and measures dynamic motion in both the out-of-plane and in-plane directions. It can measure the frequency response of resonant devices, as well as the time-domain response of switches, actuators and other structures.