Tag Archives: Small Times Magazine

NanoCon Newswire

Aug. 28, 2006 (Emeryville, Calif.) — Nanomix Inc., a leading nanoelectronic detection company commercializing high-value diagnostic and monitoring applications, today announced the appointment of Scott Schroeder as Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer to lead the company’s financial and administrative activities. In this position, Mr. Schroeder will report to David Macdonald, President and Chief Executive Officer.

Mr. Schroeder has over 15 years experience providing financial and administrative support to both private and public companies across a broad range of hardware and software products. After earning a BBA in Banking and Finance at Hofstra University, Mr. Schroeder obtained his MBA from Hofstra University with a focus in Accounting. He is a licensed Certified Public Accountant in California and several other states.

Prior to joining Nanomix, Mr. Schroeder was Vice President Finance at Luminous Networks, a privately held communications equipment company. He was Vice President Finance and Corporate Secretary at Brokat Technologies resulting from the acquisition of Blaze Software, where he supported a successful NASDAQ Initial Public Offering. Mr. Schroeder has also served in roles of increasing responsibility at Accugraph Corporation, Coopers and Lybrand L.L.P., and Dreyfus Corporation.

“We are excited about the addition of Scott to our management team,” said Nanomix CEO David Macdonald, “He will continue our progress related to building infrastructure to support our rapid expansion and growth plans.”

About Nanomix

Nanomix is a leading nanoelectronic detection company launching a portfolio of devices based on Sensation™ technology. These scaleable devices use ultra-sensitive carbon nanotube detection elements combined with proprietary chemistries. They can be deployed across a broad range of industrial and medical applications where valuable attributes – low power consumption, small size, and high sensitivity offer significant performance advantages and enable unprecedented access to critical information. Nanomix is located in Emeryville, California. For additional information, please visit the Nanomix web site at www.nano.com

Small Times

Aug. 28, 2006 — Soitec, a Bernin, France-based manufacturer of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers and other engineered substrates, announced it has broken ground on its new 300 mm wafer fab in Singapore. The groundbreaking ceremony marked the start of construction at the company’s newest production facility.

Designated Fab 3, the facility is expected to start supplying the group’s customer base with SOI wafers in mid-2008, as it ramps to a final production capacity of one million wafers per year.

Fab 3 is Soitec’s first fab in Asia. The company says it is a critical part of the group’s strategic investment plan to expand its worldwide production capacity, enhance its ongoing R&D efforts, and forge closer relationships with its customers.

The fab is intended to take advantage of the newest in manufacturing technologies — for example, it will utilize mini-environments in order to reduce wafer contamination risk and increase yields. The total investment in Fab 3 is expected to be approximately $448 million. When completed, it is anticipated that approximately 500 people will work in the facility.

Aug. 25, 2006 — PI of Auburn, Mass., announced its P-652 piezoelectric linear-motor driven translation stage.

The company says the stage is smaller and provides very high speed and resolution. It consists of 4 parts and is designed to replace classical drive elements like rotary motor/leadscrew assemblies or electromagnetic linear motors in a micro-system.

Measuring 9.0 x 6.5 x 2.4 mm, the new stage offers a travel range of 3.2 mm and can move at velocities of up to 80 mm/sec. It offers sub-micron resolution combined with a high holding force of 20 grams.

The company says the piezoelectric ultrasonic motor drives are suited for OEM applications where space is limited and masses are small. The systems are optimized for moving small objects such as fibers, optomechanical components, micro-medical devices, micromechanics, or MEMS.

Aug. 24, 2006 — Pennsylvania Governor Edward G. Rendell said the commonwealth will invest $11.1 million to support Pennsylvania’s scientists and researchers in nanotechnology and engineering research.

The Governor said the Ben Franklin Technology Development Authority (BFTDA) approved the allocation from its university program to support the Pennsylvania Initiative for Nanotechnology and related projects.

The announcement was made on Wednesday on the campus of Lehigh University by Department of Community and Economic Development Secretary Dennis Yablonsky. With over $63 million in support to build-out facilities and jump-start nanotechnology related programs, this investment has leveraged more than $70 million in federal funding for a total investment of $133 million.

Aug. 23, 2006 — NanoSensors Inc. a Santa Clara, Calif., nanotechnology development company that develops instruments and sensors to detect explosives, chemical and biological agents, announced that it has entered into a technology license agreement with Michigan State University for exclusive patent-pending rights to nanoporous silicon-based electrochemical DNA biosensors.

The company says the license provides it with the exclusive worldwide right to use for commercial purposes the rights and related technology for the field of use in detecting certain selected bacteria. The license also provides the company with the right to expand the licensed rights to utilize the nanoporous silicon sensor platform for additional fields of use. The technology license has a term of 15 years, or the duration of the patent rights licensed, whichever is longer.

Aug. 22, 2006 – NanoInk Inc., a company specializing in nanometer-scale manufacturing and applications development in the life sciences and semiconductor industries, announced that it has been awarded a $735,000 Phase II Small Business Innovation Research grant from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) of the National Institutes of Health.

The grant will be used to develop novel, biologically functional nanostructures that dramatically enhance the reproducibility, sensitivity, and spatial density of chip-based assays. To accomplish this objective, NanoInk said it will develop a patterning methodology based on its dip pen nanolithography technology to generate sub-micron sized features on solid surfaces.

Aug. 18, 2006 — Advanced Diamond Technologies Inc. announced that the company and its collaborators received a $1.4 million Phase II program award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to advance next-generation broadband communication devices based on Advanced Diamond’s Ultrananocrystalline Diamond (UNCD).

The companies say the unique properties of UNCD enable MEMS to directly integrate with silicon microchips, resulting in faster, more reliable wireless communications systems.

“During Phase I of this project, we discovered that UNCD exhibits the highest known acoustic velocity of any material, which directly translates to higher resonator frequencies and thus device performance,” said Advanced Diamond’s chief technology officer, John Carlisle, in a prepared statement.

Advanced Diamond is partnering with Argonne National Laboratory, which will provide fundamental and applied research on the UNCD technology developed there over the past 14 years, while Innovative Micro Technology will produce the devices. The Prof. R. W. Carpick group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will apply advanced atomic force microscopy techniques to characterize the performance of UNCD-based MEMS devices.

Aug. 17, 2006 – Silecs Inc. introduced its SC series of products for use as advanced optical coatings in CMOS image sensor production.

The company says its unique molecular engineering approach has enabled it to design the product specifically to improve the reliability and optical efficiency of CMOS image sensors, enabling enhanced image quality for end users.

The optically tuned films maximize efficient light transmission from the microlens surface to the optical sensor level, while low temperature processing and direct photo-patterning enable simplified, low-cost manufacturing. Silecs maintains that this is achieved while maintaining exceptional thermo-mechanical strength and chemical resistance to meet production process requirements.

Aug. 17, 2006 — Nanomaterials maker Oxonica announced it has reached an agreement with Petrol Ofisi A.S., Turkey’s leading national oil company, to supply its Envirox fuel borne nanocatalyst for use in diesel fuel across Petrol Ofisi’s nationwide distribution network.

Oxonica said that the agreement is the first of its kind for Envirox and is in line with Oxonica’s strategy of signing commercially significant deals with major partners to access volume markets. The company said it expects the deal to generate sales for Oxonica worth $12.7 million in 2006.

The company said that in field trials, Envirox has been shown to reduce fuel consumption in diesel engines by 5 percent to 10 percent with commensurate reductions in carbon dioxide. It also said that Envirox has been shown to reduce particulate emissions by up to 15 percent.

The agreement provides for an initial supply of Envirox which will be used by Petrol Ofisi to evaluate market acceptance of the enhanced fuel within its national market. Following the marketing evaluation, Oxonica expects to be in a position to indicate likely levels of ongoing demand in the first quarter of 2007 In addition, Oxonica also announced the launch of a collaboration with Petrol Ofisi and Oxford University to develop new catalysts for the petrochemical industry.

Aug. 17, 2006 – Siargo Ltd. of Santa Clara, Calif., announced the release of its low power MEMS sensors for fuel cell systems, including a gas mass flow sensor for solid oxide fuel cells and a methanol concentration sensor for direct methanol fuel cells.

The flow sensor measures the temperature redistribution of the sensor surface which depends on the media’s mass as well as the media’s flow speed. The company says its sensors are well suited to the application because they consume less power while offering good accuracy and response time.

The methanol concentration sensor measures a full range of methanol’s concentration in water from 0 percent to 100 percent with real-time, in-line measurement capability. The typical maximum power consumed is 15mW.

The company is now offering single or multi-channel packaged evaluation sensor units that fuel cell system customers can integrate into their products.