Category Archives: LEDs

July 25, 2003 — Nanox Inc., a Quebec-based developer of autocatalyst materials based on nanostructured oxide materials, announced that it closed on $2.9 million in second-round funding.

The round was led by Pangaea Ventures. The Solidarity Fund QFL, Business Development Bank of Canada Venture Capital and Sovar also participated. The money will be used for laboratory expenditures, enhancing the company’s testing program and developing its manufacturing capability, according to Gary Whipp, chief executive officer.

July 24, 2003 — Three firms were recognized for offering today’s most important nano-related products and services in the 2003 Nano Republic Awards.

Quantum Dot Corp., which develops nanocrystal particle-based systems for life science, received the Most Promising Innovation award. Hybrid Plastics, maker of nanocomposites that enhance materials for medical, consumer and aerospace products, shared the Most Promising Application award with Shea Technology Group, a consulting firm in wireless and telecom technology.

Nano Republic is sponsored by Larta, a Los Angeles-based business development agency.

July 22, 2003 — Power Paper Ltd., an Israeli provider of thin and flexible micro power source technology for toys, radio frequency identification tags and cosmetic patches, announced a $12 million extension to its fourth round of funding. The company previously announced $3 million in October of last year. The company has raised $29 million to date.

Amadeus Capital Partners led the round. Banc America Capital Partners, the PolyTechnos Funds, Millennium Materials Technologies Funds, Toppan Forms, Yasuda Enterprise Development Co. and previous investors also participated.

The company recently relocated to new headquarters near Tel Aviv, Israel. It employs 60 people.

July 22, 2003 — Quantum Dot Corp. and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory teamed up to make a more sensitive single-use diagnostic test using nanocrystals, according to a news release.

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The test, which uses fluorescent nanocrystals, was developed to diagnose pregnancy but could also be used to detect drugs, pathogens and allergens. The test offers several advantages over current methods, including the ability to test several substances on one strip because of the many colors of quantum dots excited by the same wavelength, the release said.

Customers of both large and small wafer-processing companies gave kudos to a wide range of vendors, but overall rankings were lower than in previous years, according to a new report from VLSI. The ratings are calculated based on customer surveys in which suppliers were ranked on a ten-point scale, covering thirteen categories describing equipment performance and customer service.

For large suppliers (in terms of sales of wafer-processing tools), Varian tops the list with a rating of 8.16, followed by Axcelis Technologies (7.28), ASML (7.24), Dainippon Screen Manufacturing (7.21), and Tokyo Electron (7.17). The average rating for the top ten companies in this segment fell by a quarter point from 2002.

Of the top ten-ranked vendors, three are in microlithography, two in ion implant tools, one in deposition tools, and four offer a broad range of equipment. Four of the top ten are based in North America, four in Japan, and two in Europe.

For small wafer-processing equipment suppliers — defined as those smaller than the largest fifteen in terms of sales — Tegal led the pack with a rating of 8.31, followed by SUSS MicroTec (7.54), Matrix Integrated Systems (7.46), Aixtron (7.29), and SEZ Group (7.14). This segment of wafer-processing vendors suffered a drop of only 0.12 in average ratings from 2002 to 2003.

These vendors also represented a wide range of technologies, including microlithography, etch firms, deposition equipment manufacturers, and two companies that offer both deposition and etch tools. Half of the top ten companies are headquartered in Europe; four are US-based, and one is from Japan.

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July 17, 2003 – The battle of the brands has begun.

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DuPont raised its flag first. In April, E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. announced that its line of organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays would be known by the brand name Olight.

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Osram Opto Semiconductors Inc., a subsidiary of giant lamp maker Osram GmbH based in Munich, got into the game May 13 with the premiere of its Pictiva brand of OLED displays. The company plans to begin production by the end of 2003.
 
Kodak unveiled its OLED brand, NuVue, on May 20. The Rochester, N.Y., based company also announced that its EasyShare LS633 digital camera would be its first product with a color active-matrix OLED display.

Made of nanostructured polymer films, OLED screens emit their own light and are lighter, smaller and more energy efficient than conventional liquid crystal displays. To marketing and branding experts, the fact that three Fortune 500 heavyweights are vying to make OLED technology a consumer proposition suggests that the market for next generation nano-powered displays will be a real contest. According to research firm DisplaySearch, the market for OLED displays will grow from $112 million worldwide in 2002 to $3.1 billion by 2007.

Sony announced in early June that it will spend $76.6 million to ramp up production of OLED displays in a joint venture with Toyota Industries that already produces liquid crystal diode (LCD) displays. The company expects mass production of OLED panels to begin by the spring of 2004.
 
Of course, consumers may not care that they’re buying nanotechnology, but they may buy what OLEDs promise: brighter images with broader color spectra and wider viewing angles, as well as lower power consumption, than existing LCD technologies used in laptops and cell phones.

“We wanted to give consumers a name for this great experience, and have them associate that with Kodak,” said Joseph Runde, director of communications for Kodak Displays. Kodak has developed its “small molecule” OLED technology with Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd.,  and aims to bring its OLED screens not only to its own cameras, but also other devices such as PDAs, portable DVD players and other hand-held electronics.

It has already licensed passive matrix versions of its OLED screen technology to Pioneer Corp., TDK, eMagin Corp. and others. At a recent Society for Information Display conference, Runde reported that Audi displayed a prototype dashboard built around a Kodak OLED screen. Because “creating, building and sustaining a brand costs money,” Runde said, the company first did market research to determine whether distinguishing its screen technology from LCDs made financial sense. The company showed side-by-side comparisons of LCD screens and Kodak’s OLEDs, he said, and 70 percent were willing to pay as much as a 30 percent premium to have the brighter, more colorful screen.

Next came the task of developing a name and a logo that supported the messages of OLEDs’ virtues. NuVue won out over about 1,000 name candidates, said Runde, because it conveys the idea of a “new way of viewing.” The logo also suggests the wide viewing angle OLED tech offers.

And now the true brand building can begin. But it won’t be through a big advertising campaign. “The best place for consumers to see this is in a product, not an ad,” said Runde. “The Sony Trinitron didn’t start in a media campaign. It happened in electronics stores where people could see that the Trinitron looked better than other televisions.” Runde said that Kodak wants to make NuVue a feature consumers seek out. The brand could be revealed on the screen itself when it is turned on, as well as on the package and the device.

Through a spokesman, DuPont said that Olight is intended to serve as the brand for its full roadmap of OLED products, including passive and active matrix screens on glass substrates. The company’s ultimate aim is to develop full-color active matrix screens that can be applied to plastic substrates.

Aubrey Balkind, chief executive of Frankfurt Balkind, a 20-year-old agency specializing in the creation and building of brands such as Adobe Acrobat and About.com, sees the OLED land grab in two lights. DuPont has a strong record in developing brands such as Lycra and Teflon, while Kodak has had a long history of marketing directly to consumers (“Share Moments. Share Life.”) On the other hand, Balkind believes, multiple brands for a display technology embedded in other devices could create confusion for consumers. Balkind predicted that in the end, “one will probably triumph” and become synonymous with the new technology, much as TiVo has become the quasi-generic term for digital video recorders.

Balkind thinks the smart money is with DuPont’s Olight. “It’s got the biggest idea and a kind of timelessness to it,” he said. Kodak’s NuVue, Balkind observed, has the potential problem of sounding not so “Nu” in a few years. Pictiva sounded a bit generic to Balkind’s experienced ear.

In fact, while the branding guru liked Olight, he did have one critique. One of the principal technical virtues of OLED screens is that they emit their own light, whereas LCDs require backlighting. “Maybe DuPont should have called it GloLight,” he suggested.

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July 15, 2003 — The National Science Foundation is hip deep in selecting a group of universities to host a sweeping nanotech research effort, the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN). Schools across the country have teamed up into various consortia vying for the project, worth as much as $140 million over the next decade.

The NNIN will be a much larger and more comprehensive version of the National Nanofabrication Users Network (called the NNUN). Managed by five schools, the NNUN was founded in 1993 to help academic and industry researchers create nanostructures. The NNUN, in turn, sprung from initial nanotech research funded by the National Science Foundation stretching back to 1983.

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The NSF is required by law to bid out the operation of significant projects such as the NNUN every 10 years. Agency officials took advantage of that rule to update their goals and craft a network that better reflects contemporary demand for nanotech research. The scope of nanotech investment since 1993, said Lawrence Goldberg, senior engineering adviser at the NSF, “has grown and changed. … This will be much larger.”

Businesses will stand to gain from the NNIN because much of its resources will be dedicated to “outside users” — industrial researchers, other academics not in the network, and government agencies. The NSF wants outside users to account for at least half the activity of whichever NNIN proposal it selects. That means schools close to business centers or with a strong track record of academic-industry cooperation are more likely to impress.

Goldberg would not say how important that criteria will be as the NSF reviews proposals, but “we hope those connections will be made.”

Significant new features of NNIN include:

· Larger size. The NNUN had only five member schools (led by Cornell and Stanford universities) located mostly in southern California and the Northeast. The NNIN is expected to have at least 10 member schools and possibly more, geographically scattered around the country.

· More diverse research. The NNUN focused merely on how to create basic nanostructures. Now the NNIN will address problems such as how to measure and control nanostructures and study their characteristics.

· New applications. NNUN research primarily addressed nanoscale electronics. In contrast, NNIN research will encompass the full range of nanotech applications, including newer fields such as life sciences and energy, which didn’t really exist 10 years ago. Also included will be study of the “social implications” of nanotech research and outreach to educate a new generation of workers in nanoscale sciences.

· More money. Ideally, the NSF wants to put $14 million a year into the NNIN for the next 10 years. The 2004 request is for only $11.4 million and the final number will depend on what Congress approves by the next fiscal year on Oct. 1 — but it is still more than double the $5.6 million the NNUN receives.

Not surprisingly, engineering schools are wildly enthusiastic about NNIN and the lucrative funding opportunity it represents. The NSF won’t say how many bids it has received, but the rumor mill among engineering professors is that four or five teams submitted proposals. Two teams are confirmed: the original five NNUN schools plus several newcomers, and a group led by MIT, the University of Illinois and the University of California, Berkeley.   

All proposals had to be submitted by May. Goldberg said the NSF will review the plans this summer, and likely select a winner by November or December. The NSF will grant only one award for the NNIN, although administrators say they might cherry-pick the best elements of competing proposals and combine them into one network.

Academics involved in the bidding say the NNIN is vital, because while many schools can now offer basic nanofabrication facilities to industry and other researchers, few can afford the costly equipment necessary to develop nanomanufacturing techniques.

“This is the next logical step,” said Gary Harris, an electrical engineering professor at Howard University. Howard is part of the expanded NNUN group bidding for the project.

Proponents of NNIN also say a crucial element of the project will be study of nanotechnology’s social implications — which, to the chagrin of many researchers, so far have been painted in unflattering lights in Michael Crichton’s best-selling novel “Prey” and other popular books and movies. Goldberg at the NSF and others hope the NNIN will put an end to bad public perceptions.

“The nanotech community wants to avoid the huge problems the genetically modified food people got themselves into,” said Trevor Thornton, a professor at Arizona State University and part of the MIT-led team.

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GRENOBLE, France, July 14, 2003 — Like almost all players in the French nano and MEMS industries, Tronic’s Microsystems SA is based in the east of France, near the future site of Minatec Center for Innovation in Micro and Nanotechnology. And like most players there, the company is a spinoff from CEA-LETI, one of the largest MEMS R&D centers in Europe.

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But Tronic’s does not intend to remain at the research stage. The company announced in May a new MEMS production facility, with big numbers attached to it: 7,000 square feet for the production area, including 4,300 square feet of clean room space. The facility, due to be completed in July, will be entirely dedicated to the production of high-end MEMS-based custom components, with a capacity of 10,000 wafers per year.

Prior to this announcement, Tronic’s had closed two rounds of funding for a total of more than $12 million, and appointed Peter Pfluger, a veteran of the microelectronics industry, as its chief executive.

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“One of our goals is to increase our market presence in the U.S. and Asia. An active marketing action is being conducted to reach that objective,” Pfluger said.

He said the company “handles the co-design, development, and industrialization of customer specific MEMS components” and ensures their volume production. “This year, about 50 percent of our revenues will be made from the instrumentation market, 20 percent from the medical, 20 percent from the defense and aerospace industry and the final 10 percent from different sectors, including the telecoms,” Pfluger said.

One example of MEMS currently produced by Tronic’s is a wafer-level chip-size packaged capacitive accelerometer. The component will be used in pacemakers to measure patients’ body movements and regulate the electrical pulses given to the heart (low pulse rate when sleeping, higher pulse rate when walking, for example).

Tronic’s is focused on very specific products, a strategy that makes sense, according to one analyst. “They have customers with highly specialized needs, who subcontract them all their production,” said Jean-Christophe Eloy, founder and manager of Yole Développement, an independent MEMS marketing consulting agency.

Eloy, who released recently a study on 366 MEMS fabs worldwide, said that the MEMS industry is close to a form of maturity. “The market is divided between a few big players, able to produce huge amounts of generic components, such as inkjet heads for printers or sensors for automobiles, and many smaller companies trying to focus on very specific products, such as Tronic’s.

The consultant seems to be confident in the future, despite the MEMS casualties left on the ground. “The market is growing and consolidating itself,” Eloy said. “Some manufacturers produce single low-cost products for many customers, while others develop many specific added-value components for one customer. Finally, MEMS have become a real industrial sector.”

Pfluger agreed, and added that customers have now been properly educated about MEMS. “The capabilities of MEMS technologies and their leveraging effect on systems is now well-recognized by the industry,” he said, adding that “the battle will not be here on prices and automation but on designing and positioning products to provide the best added-value systems.”

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Company file: Tronic’s Microsystems SA
(last updated July 14, 2003)

Company
Tronic’s Microsystems SA

Headquarters
55 rue du Pré de l’Horme
38926 CROLLES Cedex
France

History
Tronic’s was spun off from European research laboratory CEA-LETI in May 1997, taking with it key technologies involving SOI (silicon-on-insulator) MEMS. In June 2002, the two organizations signed a three-year R&D agreement that ensures future collaboration on these technologies.

Industry
Design, development and manufacture of MEMS devices

Small tech-related products and services
Tronic’s Microsystems aids in the custom design, development and manufacture of MEMS components including, but not limited to:

  • inertial sensors

  • optical devices

  • RF MEMS

  • microfluidic components

    • Management

  • Stephane Renard: founder and executive chairman

  • Peter Pfluger: chief executive officer

    • Investment history
    In May 2000, Tronic’s garnered roughly $865,000 in a round led by CDC Innovation 2000 FCPR. In July 2001 CDC once again participated in a funding round, this time for $11.9 million. Additional participants included Sercel Holding, Crédit Lyonnais Venture Capital, Schneider Electric Ventures and an angel investor.

    Selected strategic partners and customers
    In October 2002 Tronic’s announced the signing of distribution deals with Japanese firms Marubeni Solutions Corp. and Seika Corp.

    Selected competitors

  • Advanced MicroSensors Inc.

  • Innovative Micro Technology Inc.

  • Kionix Inc.

  • MEMSCAP

  • PHS MEMS

    • Why they’re in small tech
    “Because there is a real market which is still largely uncovered,” said CEO Peter Pfluger. “As new product developments are being finalized in research centers, we’ll be ready to industrialize and produce the devices with our new production facility.”

    What keeps them up at night
    “Starting up the new fab and ramping up production in this facility,” Pfluger said.

    Recent news and publications

  • Tronic’s names new CEO

  • Tronic’s inks deals with two Japanese firms

    • Contact

  • URL: www.tronics-mst.com

  • Phone: +33 (0)4 76 97 29 50

  • Fax: +33 (0)4 76 97 29 51

  • E-mail: [email protected]

    • — Research by Gretchen McNeely

    July 9, 2003 – Semiconductor IP company Elixent, Bristol, UK, has closed a second round of funding worth $10 million, led by GIMV and NIF Ventures as well as founding investor 3i. The funds will be used to expand the company’s engineering group and accelerate the international rollout of its products. The startup raised $14 million in its first round of funding in 2001.

    July 9, 2003 – Parsippany, NJ – Matheson Tri-Gas Inc. has formed a new electronic and specialty gas equipment team to serve customers requiring high-purity gas delivery systems. The team will be led by John Smickenbecker, director of ESG equipment sales, and be supported by the company’s equipment technology center in Montgomeryville, PA.