Business briefs

12 Mar 2010

Featuring news from Zygo, II-VI, EPIC, LIMO and Osram Opto Semiconductors

• II-VI Incorporated, US, announced this week that it was withdrawing its proposal to acquire all the outstanding common shares of Zygo Corporation, US, for $10.00 per share. II-VI submitted an offer to Zygo's board of directors on 5 January 2010.

"We feel Zygo is a strong fit with II-VI's strategic plans and growth initiatives and strongly believe that the Zygo shareholders, customers and employees could have benefited from a combination with II-VI," said Francis J Kramer, II-VI's president and chief executive officer.

• EPIC, the European Photonics Industry Consortium, has released LEDs: The 2009 Market Review. The report, which is distributed exclusively to EPIC members, tracks the response of the lighting and display industries through the recent economic downturn.

HB-LED and OLED unit production figures, as well as revenues, have been summarized for major players around the world during 2008 and 2009. The HB-LED sector showed a strong recovery during Q3 and Q4 of 2009, led by backlighting of flat-panel displays. In its analysis, EPIC shows that the production of HB-LEDs should reach record levels in 2010 and 2011.

• The IPHT Institute in Jena, Germany, has successfully used LIMO's L³ line laser in trials looking at the crystallization of thin-film amorphous silicon solar cells. The next step is to move to industrial mass production.

"This result opens the doors for an industrial use of this highly efficient solar cell," said Fritz Falk of IPHT. "With LIMO technology, we were able to increase the current in our silicon thin-film solar cells by 50%. For the first time we demonstrated an error free production of this new cell type."

• Osram Opto Semiconductors has added the OSTAR Compact to its range of LEDs for daylight running (DLR) applications in the automotive sector. According to the company, the product will provide the basis for many new DLR designs and is the perfect source for use with light guides.

With a power draw of 5 W and an operating current of 1.4 A, the OSTAR Compact is said to achieve a typical brightness of 300 lm. The robust component also has an optimum heat removal rate of 6 K/W, making it ideal for the high-temperature zones at the front of an automobile. OSTAR Compact does not require a reflector or lens.