Williams Opens Czech Republic Facility

Williams Advanced Materials (WAM), a Buffalo, N.Y., maker of metal products for the magnetic and optical data storage, wireless telecommunications, semiconductor and photonics industries, announced today it has opened a new precision cleaning and reconditioning facility in the Czech Republic. WAM is a subsidiary of Brush Engineered Materials Inc., a Cleveland, Ohio, supplier of beryllium, alloy, electronic and precious-metal products and engineered material systems. WAM said the expansion supports its physical vapor deposition (PVD) customers in the semiconductor and other technology markets and will augment its PVD materials business throughout Europe. OMC Scientific, a subsidiary of WAM, is operating the new facility, in the city of Louny, in the northwestern Czech region of Bohemia. OMC operates a similar facility in Limerick, Ireland. WAM is also in the process of opening a new PVD operations and services center near Shanghai, China. The Louny site, which has been brought on line over the past few weeks, provides services including precious metal recovery, ultrasonic cleaning, surface treatment, quality control and cleanroom packaging; it also offers parts-tracking services, decoupled plasma source (DPS) etching, ion implantation parts cleaning and reconditioning, and assembly and leak-testing of ultrahigh vacuum components. Space is also available for manufacturing expansion and new market opportunities, Williams said. In 2006, WAM acquired CERAC, a Milwaukee, Wisc., provider of specialty inorganic materials. In 2005, in addition to acquiring OMC Scientific, WAM bought Thin Film Technology Inc., a Buellton, Calif., provider of precision optical coatings, photo lithography, thin-film hybrid circuits and specialized thin-film coatings and services.