Business briefs

29 Sep 2008

Featuring news from StockerYale, Tessera, Dell, NanoMarkets, Innolume and more.

• StockerYale has opened a new facility in Cork, Ireland, which will double the production capacity of the company's LED Systems business unit. The Cork facility will also serve as a research and development centre in support of the company's 'chip-on-board' LED technology. See also our previous coverage of Cork's strength in optics technology.

• Tessera Technologies has created Product Launch Services, through which the company will deliver its imaging solutions directly to manufacturers. The intention is to provide manufacturers with early access to Tessera's OptiML wafer-level camera (WLC) technology, and so accelerate the rate of adoption in the industry while the supply chain ramps up for high-volume production. The first product to be offered through these Services is the OptiML WL-VGA-1E single-element VGA lens.

• Dell has announced plans to transition all of its new notebook displays to light-emitting diodes (LEDs) in the next 12 months. The company estimates customer savings of approximately $20 million and 220 million kilowatt-hours in 2010 and 2011 combined, the equivalent of annual CO₂ emissions resulting from energy use of more than 10,000 homes. See also Dell aims for LED displays in all laptops within 12 months on compoundsemiconductor.net.

• Organic LED (OLED) lighting is on the verge of providing an excellent complementary technology today, and provides an attractive diversification for OLED display firms that have been frustrated by the twists and turns of the display market, according to a new report. The market for inorganic light-emitting diodes remains healthy, especially high-brightness LEDs (HB-LEDs) for signals, signs, and automotive lighting. Other lighting technologies competing with OLEDs in specific niches include thick-film electroluminescent (EL) lamps for backlights and panels, and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) for both lighting and displays. OLED Lighting Markets 2008 has been prepared by NanoMarkets.

• Innolume has received the 2008 Frost & Sullivan North American Technology Innovation of the Year Award. The company's laser technology is based on quantum dots (QDs), and could lead to highly efficient light sources for emerging applications, including silicon photonics for optical interconnect systems and lasers for niche medical applications. See earlier coverage of Innolume on optics.org.

• Universal Display has been awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I grant of just under $100,000 from the US Department of Energy (DOE) under the Department's Solid State Lighting program. Entitled 'Enhanced Light Outcoupling in WOLEDs', the project will focus on demonstrating a novel technique to improve the optical outcoupling efficiency of white OLEDs. Universal Display has said it intends to double the outcoupling efficiency, and achieve an external quantum efficiency of about 50%.

• Fiberguide Industries has been acquired by manufacturing group Halma, allowing Fiberguide to collaborate with Halma's network of photonics equipment manufacturers while also strengthening Halma's existing fibre optic assembly activities.

People

• Steven Berger has been appointed president and chief executive officer by Crystal IS, a supplier of single crystal aluminium nitride substrates used in the development of deep ultraviolet light emitting diodes. Berger joins from FEI, a manufacturer of electron microscopes.

• Optis has named Andrea Fields as sales account manager, based at the company's recently established US office in Michigan. Fields will focus on the development of the existing account base as well as new business development for the company's light simulation products.

• Jessica Black has been appointed sales engineer for the Midwestern US territory by Deposition Sciences, a supplier of thin-film optical coatings. Black will support Deposition Sciences' current and new customers in the region, which is said to currently be a growth area for the company.

• Intense, a UK developer of semiconductor lasers and integrated solutions, has appointed Berthold Schmidt as vice president of global product and market development. He will be responsible for driving growth of the company's products, especially its core quantum well intermixing (QWI) technology and applications in print, industrial, defence and medical markets.

• MicroEmissive Displays is expanding its sales management team in Asia to provide support to customers and distributors in the region. Echo Li Kam Wah has been appointed to the newly created role of vice president of sales for Asia, and he will be responsible for sales in Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Singapore, Korea and other countries in southern Asia.

• Craig Tyner has been appointed senior vice president of engineering by eSolar, a producer of modular solar thermal power plants. He will lead the development of eSolar's technology, which has already attracted key utilities across the Southwest United States.