Many of Cookson’s worldwide sites have been registered to the international QMS standards ISO 9001:1994 or ISO 9002:1994 since the early 1990s, claims Nicholas Banis, Ph.D., Cookson’s Director of Global Quality Assurance. The company continued to expand its registrations to new facilities after major acquisitions and building new manufacturing sites. In 2002, all of Cookson’s sites began upgrading to the single ISO 9001:2000 standard, and within one year, all sites converted to ISO 9001:2000. Prior to the upgrade, Cookson’s facilities had over 11 registrars certifying their sites worldwide, according to Banis, reinforcing global system standardization among Cookson’s worldwide manufacturing facilities. However, having multiple registrars was not the ideal business model for the organization, so Cookson consolidated the 11 registrars by choosing BSI because of its global reach.

(March 30, 2006) Munich, Germany &#8212 SUSS MicroTec AG has installed PA300PS ProbeShield semiautomatic probe systems with ReAlign and ContactView technology and PA300 probe systems for RF-noise and S-parameter measurements at IMEC, a Leuven, Belgium-based nanoelectronics research center. The two companies will also collaborate on enhancing 300-mm probe systems in the future.