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NASHUA, N.H./BETHESDA, Md.—Final preparations are set for the 2004 CleanRooms East/PDA SciTech Summit (March 8-12) conferences sessions, one of the life sciences' most comprehensive contamination and process control education events to date.

This year's CleanRooms East conference—which will run alongside the PDA's spring conference—is the culmination of more than six months of planning and preparation in coordination between CleanRooms magazine and various members of the PDA conference committees. The result is three days of contamination control-specific sessions geared to help attendees design, build, expand, maintain and manage cleanroom facilities and labs.

“Being co-located with the PDA has allowed CleanRooms to concentrate on the content that we do best-sound contamination control basics and smart, efficient cleanroom design/engineering,” says Michael Levans, chief editor of CleanRooms. “We'll help attendees design, build and maintain the clean facilities, and the PDA will help attendees fine-tune and regulate the processes that go on inside the clean facilities. We expect quite a bit of cross-over between CleanRooms East and PDA, since what's being offered are two distinct, yet perfectly complementary conference programs.”

The CleanRooms East conference will launch on Monday, March 8, with its “industry-standard” line-up of seven full- and half-day tutorials on cleanrooms basics, including: T1/Planning and Constructing a Contamination Controlled Environment, led by CleanRooms Editorial Advisory Board Member Thomas Hansz; T2/Cleanrooms 101: A Contamination Control Review, by the world's leading educator in cleanroom management, Anne Marie Dixon; and T3/Standards Part I: The Essential ISO-14644 Review, by Dick Matthews, chairman of ISO Technical Committee 209.

“These tutorial presenters are the global authorities on their respective subjects,” says Levans. “This day of tutorials, geared for end users across all cleanrooms end-user markets, is the single, most intense day of basic cleanroom education offered anywhere in the world.”

Tuesday, March 9, and Wednesday, March 10 will feature topic-specific sessions spun off of the more general tutorial sessions. For example, attendees who capture the basics of getting started on a cleanroom project during T1 will learn more about the modular approach in S-2 Modular Cleanroom Construction for cGMP Facilities, presented by Tim Loughran, managing partner of AdvanceTEC.

“If there's a recurring theme, it has to be 'cost- and regulation-conscience engineering and management,'” says Levans.

Three new sessions designed to address this pressing cost-cutting trend for life science owners are: S-7 Cleanroom Design/Construction: Where Does the Money Go?, presented by Bill Deckert of Integrated Project Services; S-12 Unitizing Manpower to Maintain and Improve Cleanroom Operations, by Larry DeShane and Bob Cates of Aramark ServiceMaster; and S-14 Moving Towards Energy Efficient Cleanrooms & Standards, by William Tschudi and Dale Sartor of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.

For more information on 2004 CleanRooms East/PDA SciTech Summit, go to www.cleanrooms.com. To reserve a booth package at CleanRooms East 2004, call Dick Arzivian, Exhibit Sales Manager: Tel. (603) 891-9315, Fax: (603) 891-9200 or e-mail: [email protected].

INDUSTRY NEWS ARCHIVE


October 31, 2003

(November 14, 2003) Chandler, Ariz. and Hong Kong, China&#8212Amkor Technology Inc.and ASAT Holdings Ltd. have entered into a comprehensive patent cross-license agreement for their respective quad flat no-lead (QFN) packaging technologies.

Bell Labs’ creation may enable laser-on-chip applications
(November 3, 2003) Murray Hill, N.J.&#8212A team led by scientists from Bell Labs has built a novel semiconductor laser that may have numerous applications ranging from advanced optical communications to sensitive chemical detectors. The tiny size of the new laser, a proof-of-design concept device, may lead to various laser-on-chip applications.

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Oct. 31, 2003 – The lab-on-a-chip market has become very crowded in the past year, and from the looks of the players involved, it�s shaping up to be a battle of the Davids and the Goliaths.

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In one corner: a cluster of startups that has been pursuing this market for the better part of a decade. These companies � led by firms such as Affymetrix Inc., Caliper Technologies Corp., Cepheid and Nanogen  � are also among the few that have gone public.

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In the other corner: the big corporate newcomers who have announced their pursuit of this market within the past six months. The potential impact of semiconductor heavyweights such as Infineon Technologies AG, Intel Corp. and STMicroelectronics should not be taken lightly.

Lab-on-a-chip technology began its trek to commercialization in the early 1990s, when there were approximately nine companies pursuing life science applications and two focused on point-of-care diagnostics.

Today, there are 21 companies that are developing lab-on-a-chip devices for use in life science research, 12 that are targeting the point-of-care market and seven focusing on point-of-need applications. That�s not counting the big guys who have now entered the ring.

While a few companies are looking to offer chips that are suitable for all three segments, it still appears to be a case of either/or when it comes to application focus. Point-of-care diagnostics is where the volume is, whereas life science research is where the money is.
The use of labs-on-a-chip for life science research extends into two key areas: drug discovery and genomics. The time and effort needed for discovery and testing of new drugs is tremendously lengthy and costly, as is the basic research necessary for a better understanding of how the human body works.

Labs-on-a-chip can provide scientists with the means to conduct such research with increased speed and precision at a lower cost. Despite the fact that total unit shipments are forecast in the low millions by 2007, it is the ASP (average selling price) of these chips that is so attractive: roughly $150-$200 each.

Point-of-care diagnostics utilizing lab-on-a-chip technologies has revolutionized patient health care. The ability to test urine, blood or saliva to determine a patient�s condition in just a few minutes has radically altered patient diagnosis and monitoring, and is changing the way in which patients are managed.

The technology has proven itself invaluable in the emergency room, as well as during and after surgery and in critical care units. It is now expanding throughout the hospital setting and can also be found as a basic diagnostic tool in more and more doctors� offices. Despite the fact that the ASP of these chips is roughly $7-$8, it is the projected total unit shipments that make this segment so appealing: tens of millions per year by 2007.

Point-of-need testing is viewed as a very promising emerging area. Combining the DNA detection capabilities of life science research chips with the portable, results-in-minutes benefits of point-of-care diagnostics has opened the door to in-the-field testing for virtually any biological organism.

Potential applications range from maintaining food quality and safety (crops in the field, product processing) to environmental monitoring of ground, surface and drinking water, to bioweapons detection. In terms of ASP and unit shipments, point-of-need testing falls squarely in between point-of-care and life science research.

Within the life science research sector, it�s possible the big players may have more leverage as a known global entity. But it�s an open question as to whether that�s enough to guarantee success. Another question lies in the instruments that read the chips. Will the semiconductor companies rely on partners to supply the readers as the startups have, or will they develop the systems themselves? If the big companies do decide to keep it all to themselves, what advantage does that bring to the table? For point-of-care, these companies still may need to partner with medical device manufacturers to gain access to a hospital buying group rather than going it alone.

Perhaps the most important question is this: How will this increased level of competition ultimately benefit the customer? Unfortunately, there are no easy answers at this point, since it will take a number of years to see how this all plays out.

INDUSTRY NEWS TODAY


October 30, 2003

Fairchild Semiconductor Purchases the RF Components Division Commercial Business Unit of Raytheon Company
South Portland, Maine—Fairchild Semiconductor, a leading supplier of high performance products that optimize system power for multiple end markets, announced it has purchased the commercial unit of the RF Components Division of the Raytheon Company. The purchase provides Fairchild with an immediate entry into the advanced radio frequency (RF) market for applications that include Wireless LANs and handset power amplifiers. The agreement also adds gallium arsenide millimeter wave integrated circuits (GaAs MMICs) to Fairchild’s extensive portfolio of high performance building block components that power multiple end market products. The business will report to Fairchild’s Power Discrete Group, led by Dr. Izak Bencuya, executive vice president and general manager.

“The addition of RF power amplifiers to our current power product offering strengthens Fairchild’s presence in the wireless communications market, while enabling expanded design opportunities in the areas of Wireless LANs (WLANs) and handsets,” said Bencuya. “The total market size for gallium arsenide power amps is projected by Strategy Analytics to grow to between $770 million and $1.2 billion by 2006, with a compound annual growth rate of 16%, adding another dimension to Fairchild’s Power Franchise(TM). We expect this business should ramp to revenues of more than $5 million per quarter towards the latter half of 2004.”

Fairchild has also acquired Raytheon’s foundry partnership agreement for the supply of gallium arsenide wafers and an equity stake in WIN Semiconductor, as well as access to foundry and support services at Raytheon’s Andover, Massachusetts facility. As part of the asset purchase agreement and transfer of intellectual property, more than thirty Raytheon designers, test engineers and business development employees will join Fairchild.

Russ Wagner, former Raytheon RF Components vice president of Business Development, will lead the group.

“This acquisition strategically aligns the global, commercial capabilities of power components industry leader Fairchild Semiconductor with the RF Components Division,” said Wagner. “We look forward to leveraging new opportunities in product development and customer support as part of Fairchild’s Power Discrete Group.”

Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.

For more information visit: www.fairchildsemi.com.
(October 30)

OCT. 28–SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.–IC Insights today released its forecast for the 2003 ranking of worldwide top 10 semiconductor suppliers.

With three suppliers from Europe, three from Japan, two from the U.S., one from Korea, and one from Taiwan, the list is expected to be a balanced representation of geographic regions. However, it is likely to be the first time that there are more European companies on the list than U.S. companies.

Led by Intel, the top six semiconductor suppliers are forecast to hold their respective positions in 2003 as compared to the 2002 top 10 ranking. However, significant movement is expected to take place in the seventh through tenth positions. According to statistics
recently generated by IC Insights, the 2003 ranking highlights are likely to include:

–Renesas, the recently formed entity comprised of Hitachi and Mitsubishi’s semiconductor businesses, will claim the third spot in the top 10 ranking.

–Motorola (ranked 9th in 2002) is forecast to fall from the top 10 ranking. IC Insights believes that Motorola has been on the top-10 supplier list since it built its first
semiconductor fab in 1959.

–A forecasted 19 percent 2003/2002 increase in the value of the euro is expected to significantly boost the 2003 results of Infineon and Philips when converted into U.S. dollars.

–Total 2003 top 10 semiconductor company sales are forecast to grow 17 percent over 2002 sales. In contrast, the worldwide 2003 semiconductor market is forecast to grow 14 percent.

Renesas Technology began operations April 1, 2003. The company was created through the merger of Hitachi’s Semiconductor & Integrated Circuit Division and Mitsubishi Electric’s System LSI Division. The result is the formation of one of the world’s largest semiconductor
suppliers with more than 27,000 employees and expected 2003 revenues of $9.0 billion.

Hitachi owns 55 percent of Renesas while Mitsubishi Electric owns the remaining 45 percent. Motorola has always been a fixture in listings of top 10 semiconductor suppliers. In 1985, Motorola was the third largest semiconductor company in the world (interestingly, Intel was ranked 8th that year). In 1995, the company held the fifth spot in the top 10 listing.

Motorola’s full-year semiconductor sales for 2003 are forecast to be $4.8 billion, flat with 2002. Motorola’s expected weak 2003 results coupled with the remendous strength of the euro, which will significantly boost Philips’ and Infineon’s total 2003 semiconductor sales when converted to U.S. dollars, is forecast to push Motorola out of the 2003 top 10 ranking.

Providing evidence of the growing popularity of using silicon foundries, TSMC is expected to move up to the ninth position in the top 10 ranking. Moreover, TSMC’s 2003 sales are forecast to trail NEC’s sales by only six percent.

A new survey of more than 100 Japanese CTOs indicates that most favor a shift in technology strategy away from semiconductors and liquid crystals toward nanotechnology, suggesting that Japanese companies may be feeling the heat from South Korean and Taiwanese chipmakers.

According to the survey, compiled by the Nikkei Business Daily, 53% of respondents indicated Japanese firms should pursue nanotechnology over the next decade, followed by 48% in favor of environmental technology and 45% for biotechnology. Only 4% said the focus should be put on chips and liquid crystals — an area in which 65% of respondents believe Japan led a decade ago.

Asked which domestic firms would lead technology development in the coming decade, the CTOs named Toyota Motor Corp., Canon, and Sony. For foreign firms, they picked IBM, General Electric, Intel, Samsung, and E.I. duPont de Nemours & Co.

Honeywell names execs


October 24, 2003

October 22, 2003 – Honeywell Electronic Materials (HEM), Sunnyvale, CA, has appointed three new executives. Rick Widden will add sales management activities to his duties as director of marketing, new business development, and IP. Jim Favier is the GM for HEM’s chemical business segment, having led the unit when it was absorbed into HEM in 2002. Mike Kotelec, formerly the global leader of the engineering reinforcement segment of Honeywell Performance Fibers, is now GM of HEM’s metals business segment.

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Oct. 20, 2003 – Quantum Dot Corp., founded in late 1998 to manufacture nanocrystals for biomedical uses, recently took up with a very big kid—Japanese electronics giant Matsushita, perhaps best known for its Panasonic brand.  The two companies will collaborate on developing tools for DNA detection and other diagnostic applications. 

Financial terms haven’t been disclosed, but the partnership’s first product debuted in September: a high throughput optical scanner targeted to the billion-dollar gene expression analysis market. 

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Quantum dots—nanoscale bits of semiconductor material–glow in distinctive colors depending on their size.  They have many potential uses, from lasers to solar cells.  QDC has elected to concentrate on biological detection, which president and COO Carol Lou calls a “sweet spot” among potential applications.  Using patented techniques under exclusive licenses from the University of California, MIT, and elsewhere, the company can coat crystals of cadmium selenide with antibodies, bits of DNA, or other substances that bind to specific molecules in an organ or cell, allowing researchers to track their activity. 

The dots can theoretically be created to glow at any wavelength of light, though QDC provides a basic palette of five colors for most of its applications. “Quantum dots are unique in that they can envision more than one thing happening at a time, which is critical for scientists to see how things are interacting, and how they’re transported in and out of the cell,” Lou says.  Fluorescent dyes, commonly used to tag biological molecules, can only track a few different activities at a time, and they tend to fade, while quantum dots hold their color.

QDC’s first product, the Qdot, has hundreds of customers among researchers and drug companies, and Lou expects that number to break four figures soon.  The company markets several standard conjugates – dots coated with specific organic molecules – and also works with users to customize the dots as needed. “We’ve had Qdots on the market for about a year, and now we’re seeing scientists publishing papers about them,” Lou says.  “That’s exciting.”

One of QDC’s collaborators, a team at Cornell University, has used the dots for in vivo imaging, making the circulatory system of a live mouse glow beneath its skin when viewed with near-infrared light.  The mouse survived the experiment.  This development could eventually produce a replacement for the dyes now used in diagnostic imaging, though plenty of research remains to be done.  “One issue the company will need to address is the toxicity and environmental impact of semiconducting particles,” says Mindy Rittner, a biotechnology analyst with Business Communications Co. 

The company’s newest product, the Qbead, is a tiny ball of polystyrene coated with quantum dots of various sizes.  The beads’ distinctive patterns allow researchers to “bar code” strands of DNA or small structures inside cells.  Qbeads will be used in the instruments developed with Matsushita.  

“The beads will allow us to track large numbers of data points—tens of thousands of different oligonucleotides [snippets of DNA] at once,” says Andy Watson, QDC’s vice president of business development.  He expects that the biggest immediate use will be in cancer tumor staging—identifying where, and to what degree, specific cancer cells have spread. 

Qdots are cheap to produce, Lou says, and are priced to reflect what the market will bear.  Enough for 100 tests costs $600.  The Qbead instrument will probably be priced at about $100,000, which she says is competitive with other instruments in the biodetection market.  She acknowledges that price adjustments in both areas may have to be made when the company starts to develop the clinical market, where downward pressure on healthcare costs makes purchasers cautious about adopting new technologies.

QDC should be able to ramp up production without too much trouble—it’s using only a small part of its 30,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Hayward, Calif., and has plenty of room for more chemical hoods at eight square feet each. 

The bigger challenge is finding chemists to populate those benches.  “It’s a relatively simple manufacturing process, but you need training in chemistry,” Lou says.   The company recruitment Web site advertises a running club, a weekly staff breakfast to discuss scientific developments and business strategies, and a first-class cappucino maker.

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Company file: Quantum Dot Corp.
(last updated Oct. 20, 2003)

Company
Quantum Dot Corp.

Headquarters
26118 Research Place
Hayward, CA 94545-3732

History
Founded in fall 1998, Quantum Dot develops nanocrystal-based DNA detection tools and diagnostic systems.

Industry
Biotechnology research and product manufacturing

Employees
41-50

Small tech-related products and services
Quantum Dot uses quantum dot crystals — cadmium selenide nanoparticles — to develop biological detection applications. The company released its initial Qdot product approximately one year ago, garnering an excellent response from the research and drug development community.

One result of Quantum Dot’s partnership with Matsushita has been the release of an optical scanner used for gene expression analysis. The scanner functions in tandem with Qbeads, polystyrene balls coated with quantum dots that permit “bar coding” of DNA strands and cellular structures.

Management

  • Dr. Joel F. Martin: chairman of the board

  • Carol Lou: president and chief operating officer

  • Andy Watson: vice president of business development

  • Ken Barovsky: vice president of intellectual property


Investment history
Quantum Dot Corp. completed a $7 million funding round in early 1999, with participation from Abingworth Management Limited and Institutional Venture Partners.

A $30 million expansion funding round in early 2000 included these investors as well as new participants MPM Capital, Frazier & Company, Schroder Ventures Life Sciences, Technogen Associates and CMEA Ventures. 
 
Revenues
$1 – $1.5 million

Selected strategic partners and customers

  • Matsushita

Selected competitors

Barriers to market
Questions have arisen regarding the potential toxicity and environmental impact of semiconductor particles; Quantum Dot will need to research and address these concerns as they grow their business.

The company will also need to monitor product pricing to ensure competitiveness when their sales expand to the clinical market.

Relevant patents
Method of detecting an analyte in a sample using semiconductor nanocrystals as a detectable label
Methods of using semiconductor nanocrystals in bead-based nucleic acid assays

Contact
URL: http://www.qdots.com/
Tel: 510-887-8775
Fax: 510-783-9729
Email: [email protected]


– Research by Gretchen McNeely

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Oct. 17, 2003 – Buckyballs, the soccer ball-shaped molecules that helped kick-start interest in nanoscale science and technology in the 1990s, finally made the big time. The biotech startup C Sixty announced Thursday that it is partnering with the pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. to develop drugs based on buckyballs, formally known as buckminsterfullerenes.

If they are successful, fullerenes could find a use that is both medically beneficial and lucrative, and open the door for high-volume production of fullerenes.

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“We expect to be driving the market for fullerenes and be a large consumer of fullerenes,” said Russ Lebovitz, C Sixty’s vice president of business development. C Sixty modifies fullerenes to make them biocompatible and to enhance their therapeutic properties. A handful of companies worldwide sell fullerenes, which to date have lacked a high-volume application.

C Sixty is focusing on the antioxidant properties of fullerenes. Fullerenes soak up cell-damaging free radicals, a byproduct from oxygen reacting with other chemicals in the body. Free radicals likely play a role in aging and fatal degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. 

 “This is a large opportunity in major diseases for which there is no treatment now,” Lebovitz said. “This could have an enormous impact on lots of people.”

The partnership gives Merck the rights to C Sixty’s fullerene-based drugs. A research group headed by Dennis Choi, the executive vice president for neurosciences at Merck Research Laboratories and a noted neurological researcher, will collaborate with C Sixty to conduct animal trials with the drugs. Before joining Merck, Choi led research programs at the University of Washington in St. Louis that focused on fullerenes as free radical scavengers.

Merck could begin clinical trials “in the near future” if the animal trials prove successful, said Anita Larsen, a spokesperson for Merck. Choi was traveling and unavailable for comment.   

C Sixty negotiated a three-pronged deal with Merck, said Philip Epstein, C Sixty’s chief executive. C Sixty will supply Merck with its fullerene compounds, license its research for the animal studies and give Merck an exclusive licensing option to market and sell the drugs. The commercial option will kick in only if a fullerene drug meets U.S. Food and Drug Administration standards.

C Sixty will bring its expertise in the chemistry and chemical-biological interplay of fullerenes into the partnership, while Merck will provide its experience in animal and human trials and in negotiating the federal regulatory maze. Merck intends to target its efforts toward developing drugs for two specific therapies, but did not name the diseases.

C Sixty will continue to explore potential therapeutic uses of fullerenes for applications as varied as cardiovascular drugs to skin creams. Lebowitz said the company is in contact with several institutions to begin animal studies targeting various diseases.

C Sixty’s name plays off the scientific shorthand for fullerenes, which are made of 60 linked carbon atoms, or C60. Fullerenes made a splash in the scientific world when they were unveiled in 1985 by chemists Robert Curl and Richard Smalley at Rice University and Sir Harry Kroto at the University of Sussex. The trio won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1996 for their discovery.

They proved that fullerenes were a third form of carbon, after graphite and diamond, and named the molecules buckminsterfullerenes because they resembled the geodesic dome invented by Buckminster Fuller. Buckyballs and another form of fullerene called carbon nanotubes are expected to become key ingredients in some nanotech products.
 
Interest in buckyballs skyrocked after 1990 when physicists Donald Huffman at Arizona State University and Wolfgang Kratschmer at Max Planck Institute in Germany reported a reasonably easy method for making quantities of the material. The method was licensed to Materials and Electrochemical Research Corp. (MER Corp.) in Arizona, one of a handful of fullerene suppliers in existence today.

Others include a joint venture in Japan among Mitsubishi Corp., Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. and Research Corporation Technologies; TDA Research in Colorado; Nano-C in Massachusetts, and CarboLex Inc. in Kentucky. Prices vary from about $45 to $190 a gram, depending on purity and other factors.

Applications have been modest. A division of the manufacturer American Bowling Service puts buckyballs in the shell of its Nanodesu bowling ball. Sony announced it was developing a fullerene-based fuel cell in 2001 but has been mostly silent since then.

Lebovitz and Epstein said they expect their suppliers will be able to ramp up production and lower costs as demand increases. They plan to work with a variety of suppliers to get their fullerenes, and anticipate the interest shown by Merck should inspire others who make, use or study buckyballs.

“From our perspective, this is the first major validation of fullerenes,” Epstein said. “It’s a major milestone.”

K&S names board member


October 16, 2003

October 16, 2003 – Kulicke & Soffa, Willow Grove, PA, has named Brian Bachman to its board of directors. Bachman is the former CEO of Axcelis Technologies, having led the company’s spin-off from Eaton Corp. in April 2000. He also has recently held executive management positions at Eaton and Philips Semiconductor.