Category Archives: LEDs

Evident receives OSD grant


February 23, 2005

Feb. 23, 2005 — Evident Technologies of Troy, N.Y., announced it has received a Small Business Innovation Research grant from the Office of Strategic Defense for a project to develop a high performance thermoelectric material using its quantum dot technology.

The objective of the project is to demonstrate that quantum dots can be used to produce an improved thermoelectric nanomaterial by engineering thermal and electronic properties to achieve increased efficiencies. Thermoelectric materials can be fashioned into devices to create electricity from temperature differences or into solid-state cooling devices.

However, says Evident Technologies, a shortcoming of existing thermoelectric materials is that they make for inefficient devices, either for cooling or energy conversion. The company will therefore work to develop an advanced thermoelectric nanomaterial that it says could offer significant cost and performance benefits for both military and commercial applications because of the material’s improved efficiencies.

The quantum dot thermoelectric project is scheduled to be completed in June of 2005. Gregory Scholes of the University of Toronto will collaborate with Evident Technologies to measure and characterize the materials. The award was granted under the United States Department of Defense’s Office of Strategic Defense SBIR Phase 1 proposal OSD04-EP3 “Nanostructure-Enhanced Bulk Thermoelectric Materials” and the program is managed by the Navy’s Office of Naval Research

Feb. 17, 2005 — Lawyers have been saying for years that there’s going to be a big battle over nanotech intellectual property. In the past month at least two more opening salvos were fired.

Just yesterday, Carbon Nanotechnologies Inc. announced its patent portfolio now numbers 30 and declared it has broad patent protection. A few weeks earlier, Dendritic NanoTechnologies Inc. announced a deal with Dow Chemical Co. that consolidates the IP portfolio for dendrimer technology under Dendritic’s control.

Houston-based Carbon Nanotechnologies claims that its patent portfolio positions it as the dominant nanomaterial company for a specific kind of carbon nanotube. It held a conference yesterday to discuss its portfolio of more 30 issued or allowed patents covering ways to make nanotubes, or to make them useful.

“The number 30 doesn’t mean anything in itself,” said Bob Gower, chief executive of the Houston-based nanotube manufacturer. “You never get the 10 most important patents issued first. But with 30, there now are broad patent (protections) that give an extremely strong position.”

Founded in 2000, the Houston-based manufacturer of single-wall carbon nanotubes has filed and been issued two critical patents for producing nanotubes, according to Gower. It also has licensed or partnered with corporations that license two other manufacturing methods.

Small tech patenting activities – of which nanotechnology is a part – have skyrocketed in recent years, according to Thomson Derwent’s Web of Nanotechnology online patent database. Experts expect the pace to continue quickening.

CNI also has been granted patents on methods for doctoring tubes to make them compatible with other materials or suitable in systems. Nanotubes proposed for applications such as wires, electrodes or additives for lightweight but strong armor typically need to be treated to perform properly.

“IP protection is critical for everything we’ve done,” said Ray McLaughlin, CNI’s chief financial officer. “IP gives us the freedom to price appropriately, and keep others from nipping at the door.”

Or keep them knocking. CNI recognized in its infancy that its intellectual property could prove as hot a commodity as the nanotubes it hoped to make in quantities. “As we sell them (nanotubes) to people,” Gower said in an interview in 2001, “we will also have to provide them with other technology, in many cases other intellectual property and the rights to use that either as a part of the price we’re charging for nanotubes or separately as an ownership arrangement.”

Originally the company positioned itself as the leading supplier of single-wall carbon nanotubes. Nanotubes can be made as single tubes, a cluster of two or three tubes or a tangled mass of tubes. The properties, which range from thermal and electrical conductivity to tensile strength, vary depending on composition. This month CNI announced it began making double-wall nanotubes as well, and added “small diameter carbon nanotubes” to its lingo.

Dendritic Nanotechnologies had to consolidate the IP around dendrimer technology in order to execute the next phase of its business plan, according to Bob Berry, chief executive officer of the Mount Pleasant, Mich., firm.

The company had previously acquired research rights from Dow Chemical, where dendrimer technology was developed, but had to return to the company for additional rights in order to commercialize the material in new markets. Now that it has acquired the 196 patents covering dendrimer technology, says Berry, the company can move forward quickly without having to negotiate IP on a piecemeal basis.

Along with the intellectual property, Dendritic also inherits six existing licensing arrangements. An early backer, Starpharma Holdings Ltd. of Australia, holds rights to a particular type of pharmaceutical application.

Dendritic’s strategy going forward is to expand its list of licensees considerably, and Berry says the company is poised to enter new markets like photonics and electronics. Lowering cost will be a crucial component of that strategy, he said, so Dendritic is developing a dendrimer that would lower the price 10 to 40 times.

“If nanotechnology is going to fulfill its dreams it has to get to application,” Berry said. “This deal gets us much closer to that.”

Feb. 16, 2005 — Microbridge Technologies Corp., a privately held company based in Montreal, announced the closing of its Series B equity financing, raising a total of $5.5 million.

The financing round was led by Zon Capital Partners of Princeton, New Jersey and includes investments by the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) Venture Capital, and Schneider Electric Ventures (SEV) of France, along with the existing seed investors, the Solidarity Fund QFL and Innovatech Montréal. This brings the total investment in Microbridge to date to $7.5 million.

The funds will be used for sales and marketing ramp up, product production ramp up and the next stage of technology development. The company is developing a product called the Rejustor, a microresistor device that adjusts the electrical current flow of components in a circuit.

Worldwide chip sales in December dropped 3.5% sequentially to $18.4 billion, a sour ending note to an otherwise outstanding performance in 2004: a record $213 billion in sales, 28% growth from 2003 and surpassing the previous mark of $205 billion in 2000, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA).

Geographically, the Americas region led the month-on-month decline in December, down 6.2% to $3.24 billion. Two regions displayed year-on-year double-digit growth: Asia Pacific (25.4%) and Europe (13.5%), while Japan trailed all regions at 3.8% growth after ushering the market’s upturn more than a year ago. Based on a three-month moving average, Europe was the only region to show positive growth (5.3%); the Americas again slid the most (5.4%).

High gasoline prices did not gouge holiday sales of consumer electronics, noted SIA president George Scalise. In fact, “A moderation of gas prices coupled with good economic growth appears to have bolstered consumer confidence” — an important factor for the semiconductor industry, which has become increasingly reliant on consumer sales.

The SIA predicts sales in 1Q05 will decline by 4%-6% sequentially after an essentially flat $55.1 billion in 4Q04, as more excess inventory is worked off, and consumer spending trends down in a post-holiday seasonal pattern. Capacity utilization rates also are expected to decline modestly.

Feb. 11, 2005 — Cambridge Display Technology (Nasdaq: OLED) and ILFORD Imaging Switzerland announced they have joined forces in a project to develop more optically efficient display devices.

Cambridge Display is developing light emitting polymers for uses in a wide range of electronic display products used for information management, communications and entertainment.

ILFORD is a manufacturer of precision coated, ink jet printing consumables. The two companies have found that certain nanoporous structures have potentially valuable properties when applied to polymer light emitting diode displays.

The project — which will complete its initial proof-of-principle phase by the end of the first quarter of 2005 — is designed to evaluate and quantify the performance advantages that may be available from the companies’ approach. Work is ongoing and centered at Cambridge Display’s technology development center near Cambridge, UK.

Cambrios names biz dev VP


February 10, 2005

Feb. 10, 2005 — Cambrios Technologies Corp. announced the addition of Hash Pakbaz to its senior management team as vice president of business development.

Pakbaz is slated to drive commercialization efforts and develop strategic relationships with key corporate partners for Cambrios, which is engaged in harnessing biological systems for the assembly and synthesis of materials as part of processes for manufacturing solid-state electronics.

Pakbaz has been in the electronics business for more than a decade. After conducting post-doctoral research at the Institute for Polymers, UC Santa Barbara and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Pakbaz joined Siemens, where he helped start a new division utilizing OLED technology for flat panel display applications.

Pakbaz later joined Symmorphix, a production equipment manufacturer for the display market. Pakbaz earned his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Cambrios recently announced raising $9 million in venture backing.

Feb. 10, 2005 — Nextreme Thermal Solutions, a Research Triangle Park, N.C., developer of next generation thin-film superlattice thermoelectric devices for applications that require extreme thermal management, raised $8 million in a Series A round of funding, according to a news release.

The investor syndicate was led by Spacevest and Aurora Funds and included Harris & Harris Group and RTI International.

Nextreme says its superlattice material, when placed directly under a hot spot, can efficiently pump heat out of a semiconductor package. The company furthermore says the formfactor of the device enables direct integration onto semiconductor silicon or into a chip package, providing a solid-state solution with no moving parts.

Feb. 3, 2005 — Konarka Technologies Inc., a developer of next-generation photovoltaic products using roll-to-roll processing technology, announced Fredric Cramer has joined the company as a vice president. Cramer is slated to help Konarka transform from pilot to mass production of its light-activated power plastic.

Before joining Konarka, Cramer served as general manager of Nova Biomedical’s Diabetes Operations Division for two years. He directed the scale-up of a diabetes test strip and blood glucose meter manufacturing process from pilot into full-scale, high-volume manufacturing, including the design, build and transfer to a new facility.

Prior to Nova Biomedical, Cramer spent 30 years at Polaroid Corp. Most recently, he was the director of Integral Films Media Development, where he led new product design and development programs for color and black-and-white films, including one that went from concept to launch in nine months. He was also director of Corporate Manufacturing and Development Strategy and was responsible for Polaroid’s photographic light sensitive and receiving sheet coating plant operations.

Feb. 3, 2005 — Dust Networks added $22 million to its coffers through a Series B round of financing that is expected to help it grow its customer base in key regions. The company, which specializes in wireless sensor networks, announced today that it completed a funding round led by Crescendo Ventures, with Cargill Ventures participating.

It also announced today that it was launching a program with federal and industrial partners to make commercial and residential buildings more energy efficient using its network systems.

Joy Weiss, Dust president and chief executive, and Rob Conant, vice president of business development, said the company would use the funding to build its sales and marketing programs and develop a broad base of customers. They added that Crescendo and Cargill, both with offices in Minneapolis, may help the California-based Dust reach target markets in the Midwest.

“For us, that’s really a big plus,” Weiss said. Dust already collaborates with Honeywell International on energy-monitoring networks for Supervalu grocery stores. Honeywell’s sensor group, as part of its automation and controls division, is in the Minneapolis region. Supervalu is based in Minneapolis.

Cargill Ventures, the business unit of an international corporation that specializes in food, agriculture and risk management products and services, should lead to opportunities for the 3-year-old startup as well. “Those are the kinds of applications we can enable,” Conant said. “We have a deep understanding of these kinds of applications — oil, gas, plants and fields.”

Existing investors Foundation Capital and Institutional Ventures Partners also participated in the funding round. The series B round brings Dust’s total funding to $30 million.

Dust also received a $1.5 million, 18-month award from the U.S. Department of Energy to create a wireless sensor network as part of an energy-savings initiative. Dust will partner with SVA Lighting USA and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to build a lighting system that includes wireless controls. Their goal is to provide a sensor-based monitoring system that adjusts lighting based on occupancy. They hope to make the system affordable by eliminating the cost of wiring and labor.

Dust was launched in 2002 by Kris Pister, an engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and the inventor of a technology known as Smart Dust. A leader in MEMS innovation, Pister develops wireless sensing networks that have been tested in environments as varied as university buildings and wildlife sanctuaries. His goal is to shrink the sensing components to the size of dust, allowing for ubiquitous and low-power monitoring networks.

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Feb. 2, 2005 — The amount of money invested by venture capitalists in U.S. companies commercializing nanotechnology fell a precipitous 35 percent last year. However, the number of companies receiving funding increased 32 percent, to the highest level Small Times has tracked in data going back to 1995.

Investors put $196.4 million into nanotechnology companies during the calendar year 2004, according to a Small Times analysis released today of the MoneyTree Survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers, Thomson Venture Economics and the National Venture Capital Association. Much of 2004’s nano funding occurred in the fourth quarter, when investors put $74.3 million into 15 companies.

Early stage attracts renewed interest

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On a dollar basis, the year’s funding is down sharply from the $301 million invested in 2003. On a deal basis, however, investors participated in a record 45 nanotech funding rounds in 2004, up from 34 in 2003. The previous record high on a deal basis was 2002, when investors participated in 41 nano rounds.

A renewed interest in early stage rounds — which are usually for smaller amounts — pushed the deal flow up despite fewer dollars. Venture investors also returned to funding startup/seed stage nano companies in the fourth quarter of 2004 after eschewing the category for three consecutive quarters.

As a result, early stage funding accounted for 36.4 percent of all nanotech funding, up from 26 percent in 2003. Expansion stage funding was responsible for 45.5 percent and later stage funding for 13.6 percent, compared to 47 percent and 18 percent, respectively, in 2003. Meanwhile, the two startup/seed stage companies funded in the fourth quarter accounted for 4.4 percent of the year’s deals, down from 9 percent in 2003. (Figures do not add up to 100 percent due to rounding.)

Q4 pumps up nano funding

During the fourth quarter of 2004, investors put $74.3 million into 15 companies commercializing nanotechnology. On a deal basis, that accounted for 2 percent of all U.S. venture funding while on a dollar basis it accounted for 1.4 percent during the quarter.

The fourth quarter saw investors funding companies commercializing a variety of nanotechnologies, including membranes with engineered nanoscale structures, nanoscale catalysts, roll-to-roll photovoltaics, inorganic nanomaterial assembly technology, nanofabricated sensors, carbon nanotubes for thermal management, carbon nanotubes for sensors and electronics, custom nanopowders, OLEDs, organic electronic structures and quantum dots.

Small tech follows similar trend

In the broader category of “small tech” — encompassing nanotechnology, MEMS and microsystems — venture backers invested $865.2 million in 126 deals during 2004, down from $982.5 million in 2003. However, the 126 deals were up slightly over the 114 done in 2003.

On a deal basis, the 126 deals accounted for 4.4 percent of all venture funding in the year, up slightly from 4.2 percent in 2003 and the second highest percent of overall yearly deal volume tracked by Small Times going back to 1995. (The highest was 2002’s 4.7 percent.) On a dollar basis, small tech accounted for 4.1 percent of all funding for the year, down from 5.4 percent in 2003.